(2 of 2)
No Cause for Alarm. What De Gaulle fears, of course, is any threat to French hegemony in the Common Market—and that is exactly what frightens other European nations. Belgium's Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak said that only because Britain "stood alone in 1940 is it possible for us to speak today of a Europe that can integrate itself." West Germany's Foreign Minister Gerhard Schröder reasserted his conviction that Britain should be admitted to the Common Market. But Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, fearful of offending his old friend De Gaulle on the eve of a visit to Paris this week, suggested that there was no cause for alarm.
Le Monde called De Gaulle's grandiose words "exacerbated nationalism" that "can only engender disorder and lead to isolation." But De Gaulle meant business. Suddenly, France's Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville rose to demand that the discussions with Britain be ended. "What," he asked the delegates, "is the sense of going on with these negotiations after the press conference of General de Gaulle?" What, indeed? At week's end the delegates gratefully took a scheduled adjournment, agreed to defer a final decision until Jan. 28.
Thus the door was slammed on Britain, but was it finally barred and bolted? De Gaulle is too skillful a tactician ever to be trapped in an absolutely rigid and negative position. Even his acrimonious Paris discourse contained the hint that Britain might be welcomed in the Common Market in five years or so, i.e., after France has had ample time to weld the political unity of the European Economic Community. Venerable Jean Monnet, the father of the Common Market, took issue with De Gaulle by insisting that Britain should be admitted now because it has already "renounced all preference for the Commonwealth and has agreed to place itself with the Continent." But even Monnet seemed to echo De Gaulle by adding that "we should move toward a unity of action between Europe and America, acting as equal partners."
* Brussels was the scene of another indignity last week when student pranksters during a blizzard kidnaped the legendary statue of Mannckcn-Pis from its fountain near city hall. When police later recovered it, a Brussels councilor described the indelicate statue as the city's "most cherished patrimony."