DLACZEGO FRANCJA WRACA DO NATO?
Why is France returning to NATO?

Summary/Abstract: On 17 June 2008, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, presented the main priorities of French defence policy for 2008-2025 as set out in “The White Book on Defence and National Security”. One of the decisions announced was the intention to return to the military structures of NATO. “Nothing prevents our participation in NATO’s military structures”, said Sarkozy, adding however that France will not put any army units under NATO command in peacetime, and will maintain full control over her nuclear arsenal. In March 1966 President Charles de Gaulle informed US President Lyndon B. Johnson along with other NATO leaders that although France planned to remain a part of NATO, she wished to modify the terms of her membership. Since that time France has not participated in two important military organs of NATO: the Defence Planning Committee and the Nuclear Planning Group, but in 1995 she rejoined the Military Committee which she had also previously boycotted. Following the end of the Cold War, France took the view that NATO needed to be reformed in order to increase the role and significance of its European members. For France, these reforms were a necessary precondition of her return to NATO’s military structures. The fall of the bipolar system meant an end to the benefits which France had gained from her unique position within NATO and she now felt diplomatically marginalized. France wanted to reenter NATO in Autumn 1995, but its other members, and especially the USA, were not prepared to accept France’s conditions. France did not hide her reservations about the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe in 1999, primarily due to concerns over the reaction of Russia. Currently, she opposes membership for Ukraine and Georgia, which is supported by the USA and Poland. France plans to present a comprehensive reentry plan at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council in April 2009 in Kehl and Strasbourg. Unlike 13 years ago, the USA, which is seeking an enlarged French commitment to the NATO operation in Afghanistan, is ready to support French proposals. France’s reintegration continues to be a matter of political controversy within NATO.

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