University of Virginia Library

Restoring France

However divided groups in France have been
on the essential requisites for a restored France
in a united Europe, there has been broad
agreement that France's normal status was one
of a great and world power, that the division of
Europe was abnormal, and that ideological and
political bipolarity was the root impediment to
the restoration of France's status and Europe's
integrity. Some Frenchmen saw an organically
integrated Western Europe united in political
will, economic strength, and military strategy -
as the basis of a reunified continent. For it was
felt that only a new political entity could at
one and at the same time provide sufficient
security to allow a disengagement of the United
States from West Europe and sufficient independence
to dampen Soviet fears that the new
construction would simply be an instrument of
Washington. Moreover, this new, dynamic, independent
construction would, it was felt, act
as a irresistible magnet to the states of Eastern
Europe. With American troops withdrawn from
Western Europe and with Germany constrained
within the organic ties of a broader European
political entity, it was felt that the Soviet
Union could no longer exploit the fears of
many eastern states of a resurgent Germany or
justify a tightly controlled Warsaw pact as a
counterbalance to a tightly American-led North
Atlantic Organization. Under these conditions,
resurgent nationalism in Eastern Europe would
render the cost of the Soviet empire too high -
forcing it to loosen its grip and to allow closer
interrelationships between east and west.