Allow me to consider the debate on French reintegration into NATO from an American standpoint, though not through the eyes of official Washington. For this argument, which has caused an uproar in France, should be an equally hot topic in America—not just among progressives who wish for a scaling back of the US military empire, but also among adherents of realpolitik who seek a balance of power that might bring about a more stable world.

Naturally, France’s full participation in a military alliance invented by Washington to contain Soviet expansion remains particularly sensitive for a country not so long ago stripped of its empire, as well as its great-power influence, on the international scene. Beneath the policy critiques (from both the left and the right) of Nicolas Sarkozy’s pet project, we are really talking about French pride.

The Gaullist deputy Nicolas Dupont-Aigan succinctly summarized the emotional stakes of the controversy in Le Monde. After first raising logical objections against the return of Paris to NATO’s integrated command, he threw down the gauntlet: ‘The debate is not technical, but ideological. In reality, Nicolas Sarkozy belongs to the ferociously Atlanticist right that is completely disconnected from the deepest feelings of the French people, to whom Charles de Gaulle restored their dignity. Romain Gary said, “My country is not France, it’s free France.” For me, it is clear: a submissive France is not and will never be France.’

We might ask where Jacques Chirac’s ‘free France’ was when it helped with the pre-emptive bombardment of Serbia (in violation of international law) under NATO command in 1999, and again when it sent ground troops in support of the useless war against the Taliban, following the American invasion of 2002. Sometimes, it’s hard to take the French seriously when they rail about ‘independence’.

Nonetheless, I hesitate to minimize this controversy, possibly symbolic, that will come to a head on 3 and 4 April when Sarkozy attends the NATO summit in Strasbourg and Kehl for the ceremony marking the 60^th anniversary of the Alliance. After all, symbols are important. I have in front of me the special edition of Paris Match published just after the death of Charles de Gaulle in 1970; the cover presents the saintly face of the great man gazing out at a middle distance with benevolence and some sadness. Curiously, Match’s glorified account of de Gaulle’s life does not mention his stunning letter of 7 March 1966 to president Lyndon Johnson, announcing that France, without quitting the Alliance, intended ‘to regain on her whole territory the full exercise of her sovereignty’ and ‘to cease her participation in the integrated commands; and no longer to place her forces at the disposal of NATO.’

Thus, amidst the Cold War and the catastrophic US military escalation in Vietnam (which de Gaulle condemned at the same time in a speech in Phnom Penh), did a French president dare to confront an American president engorged with self-destructive arrogance. By dismissing the NATO general staff from its headquarters in Fontainebleau, de Gaulle also rejected the idea of a binary ideological and strategic battle between the Western and Communist worlds. For a Frenchman, this thunderbolt would contribute to restoring the self-esteem of a country still diminished by the defeat of 1940 and the shame of Vichy. For an American, de Gaulle’s non was a slap in the face of Johnson that revealed a head of state—sane and not the least bit Stalinist—who refused to accept the rules of the game established by Washington and Moscow in their endless folie à deux.

My issue of Paris Match notably contains a photograph of President de Gaulle in July 1966 witnessing ‘the explosion of our first atomic bomb’ in Polynesia. Good chauvinists, the editors of Match bragged about the ‘force de frappe that will be our grandeur in the years to come’.

But moral force counts more than military force in the grandeur of a nation. Here, French values could help lead America back to reason, outside the anachronistic structure of NATO. Dominique de Villepin made a good start in 2003 with his speech at the UN against the invasion of Iraq; today, he wisely opposes Sarkozy’s ambition to ‘fully rejoin NATO’. According to Villepin, the dangers of such a rapprochement are clear: ‘It is extremely difficult to resist the pressure exerted by the Americans when they consider their own security to be at stake.’

Of course, it has already been difficult to resist the American folly in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Now, Sarkozy finds himself trapped between his ambition to be seen at Barack Obama’s side in Afghanistan and the resistance of his own people to an expansion of France’s role in an American-directed—and unwinnable—‘anti-terrorist’ war.

In the final analysis, what is the point of maintaining a Western defensive alliance in a world supposedly more integrated than ever? Why weaken the diplomatic strength of the UN with deadly NATO strikes against civilians in Kandahar? Why provoke a non-communist (but still dangerous) Russia, when it reacted so violently to Georgia’s foolish attempt (encouraged by the Bush administration) to move toward NATO membership. NATO did not come to the rescue of Russian-occupied Gori any more than it prevented Russian warships, last December, from engaging in joint manoeuvres with Hugo Chávez’s navy on America’s doorstep. On the other hand, Charles de Gaulle’s independent and multipolar vision could serve as a compass for an America that once again has lost its way.♦