(3 of 7)
On other grounds, the Eurocrats themselves had reason for dismay at Charles de Gaulle's new strength. Gone glimmering were their hopes for rapid political integration of Europe, which, according to the Rome Treaty, is the grand design of the Common Market. De Gaulle wants no part of a United States of Europe in which France would have to surrender sovereignty to a common Continental Parliament. He wants unity in Europe all right, but of a different kind. For him, the target is the "Europe des Etats," a loose alliance of autonomous nations. Charles de Gaulle clearly hoped that this would improve France's opportunity to assume the leadership of the new Europe.
Military Snickers. In De Gaulle's eyes, France's most effective lever on leadership will be its force de frappe, which he will brandish as proof of France's rightful place beside the U.S. and Britain in directing Western policy. Its private deterrent is an expensive luxury for France—$300 million a year—and will become costlier still. For its money, France next year will have an operational force of 50 short-range Mirage IV bombers, each carrying two relatively low-yield atom bombs. Snickering military experts point out that this will be equal to only one U.S. bomber wing. For Gallic egos, this does not matter. More important, it will no doubt increase France's influence. Already, its imminent reality has persuaded the U.S. to supply De Gaulle with air-to-air refueling tanker planes to increase the Mirages' effective range.
By contrast, the U.S. this month will ask France to create a mechanized army division (cost: $400 million) for use by NATO in the common defense of Europe.
Judging from past experience. De Gaulle's reply will be non; he has refused to return to NATO two divisions that he withdrew for use in the Algerian war, still keeps his fleet out of NATO's Mediterranean defense screen, and prohibits use of French bases for storage of U.S. nuclear weapons.
Prophet Without Honor. To many of his critics, France's towering, turbulent leader seems, as H. G. Wells once said, to be "an utterly sincere megalomaniac." Catholic Novelist François Mauriac wrote with greater insight: "He appears as though delegated by historic France to living France, in order that it should remember what a great nation it has been." In fact, De Gaulle has had a lifelong conviction that his mission is to lead France to new greatness. Hauteur and intransigence have always been weapons in that fight. For much of his life, he has been either a prophet without honor in his own country or, in wartime London and Washington, a soldier armed only with honor. When his country was helpless, he repeatedly forced the world to take his inspired vision of France for the reality, to accept his own obduracy and obstruction as a show of national strength. Today, with real military strength, a robust economy, Europe's most productive agriculture, he feels that France has an even greater right to alienate allies and condescend to friends.