France takes strength from US ties

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Series Title
Series Details 10.3.09
Publication Date 10/03/2009
Content Type

Report of a FT interview with French Defence Minister Hervé Morin, March 2009. In the interview he discusses France’s plan to rejoin the integrated command structure of Nato 43 years after President de Gaulle, pulled his country out in an expression of French independence from the US.

The reason for France’s return, he said, was not to make a further gesture of goodwill toward Washington but to convince European Union members to back a stronger EU defence policy by eliminating suspicion about France’s motives. He also discusses the need to create an autonomous operational planning command for the EU.

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