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French sought union with Britain in '56
The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
LONDON
Would France have been better off under Queen Elizabeth II?
The revelation that the French government proposed a union of Britain and France in 1956 — even offering to accept the sovereignty of the British Queen — has left scholars on both sides of the Channel scratching their heads.
Newly discovered documents in Britain's National Archives show how a former French prime minister, Guy Mollet, discussed the possibility of a merger between the two countries with Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden of Britain.
"I completely fell off my seat," said Richard Vinen, an expert in French history at King's College in London. "It's such a bizarre thing to propose."
Eden rejected the idea of a union but was more favorable to a French proposal to join the Commonwealth, according to the documents — one of which said Mollet "had not thought there need be difficulty over France accepting the headship of her Majesty."
While the two nations — separated by a thin body of water — have been bitter rivals since the Middle Ages, the two EU partners now concentrate on trading tourists rather than arrows.
But proposals for English-French unity are not new.
Winston Churchill, in a last-ditch attempt to keep France on the side of the Allies in World War II, appealed for a full union of the nations in June 1940.
After the war, Ernest Bevin, Britain's foreign secretary, also toyed with the idea of a "Western Union," a European — and African — bloc led by Britain and France.
The proposals all shared an element of desperation, said Kevin Ruane, a historian at Canterbury Christ Church University, England. "It's so impracticable an idea that it has only been raised in extreme situations," he said.
Threatened by an Arab revolt in French Algeria and hobbled by instability at home, France was desperate to maintain its independence from both the Soviet Union and the United States, Ruane said.
But the former French leader's memoirs showed nothing about the proposal, said François Lafon, a history professor at the Sorbonne in Paris and a Mollet biographer. Lafon suggested it was probably just a political tactic to press the British to firm up their role for the imminent attack on Egypt, whose leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the French accused of supporting the Algerian insurgents.
But even under the circumstances, the suggestion that France would accept the British Queen struck historians as bizarre.
Mollet was a socialist, and leftist Frenchmen looked to the execution of their king Louis XVI as one of the crowning achievements of the French Revolution. They would have been unlikely to welcome a foreign monarch with open arms. "It must have been some kind of eccentric gesture," Vinen said.
A year after Britain turned down France's proposed merger, the French joined the Common Market, the European Union's predecessor. By the time Britain tried to join the group seven years later, Charles De Gaulle had largely revived France's international standing, even as Britain's economy continued to stagnate. De Gaulle vetoed Britain's attempts to join the European Economic Community — twice.
"In retrospect, the irony of this was that the losers were the British," Vinen said. "Maybe we'd be in a better position being ruled by Charles de Gaulle in 1965 than Harold Wilson."
Not all Frenchmen were so sure.
"Can you imagine?" said Jose-Alain Fralon, author of "Help, the English are invading!" "What would the English tabloids do if they could no longer tell stories about the froggies, and what about those French who blame everything on the English?"
The British, he added, are "our most dear enemies" and "we would lose all of the saltiness in our relationship" had the two countries merged.
Still, he said, the two peoples complement each other marvelously.
"Roast beef and frogs don't go together in the same dish. But frogs' legs as a starter and a good roast beef as the main dish — c'est merveilleux," he said.
The documents, which have been unclassified for more than 20 years, were found by a BBC producer late last month.
The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
LONDON
Would France have been better off under Queen Elizabeth II?
The revelation that the French government proposed a union of Britain and France in 1956 — even offering to accept the sovereignty of the British Queen — has left scholars on both sides of the Channel scratching their heads.
Newly discovered documents in Britain's National Archives show how a former French prime minister, Guy Mollet, discussed the possibility of a merger between the two countries with Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden of Britain.
"I completely fell off my seat," said Richard Vinen, an expert in French history at King's College in London. "It's such a bizarre thing to propose."
Eden rejected the idea of a union but was more favorable to a French proposal to join the Commonwealth, according to the documents — one of which said Mollet "had not thought there need be difficulty over France accepting the headship of her Majesty."
While the two nations — separated by a thin body of water — have been bitter rivals since the Middle Ages, the two EU partners now concentrate on trading tourists rather than arrows.
But proposals for English-French unity are not new.
Winston Churchill, in a last-ditch attempt to keep France on the side of the Allies in World War II, appealed for a full union of the nations in June 1940.
After the war, Ernest Bevin, Britain's foreign secretary, also toyed with the idea of a "Western Union," a European — and African — bloc led by Britain and France.
The proposals all shared an element of desperation, said Kevin Ruane, a historian at Canterbury Christ Church University, England. "It's so impracticable an idea that it has only been raised in extreme situations," he said.
Threatened by an Arab revolt in French Algeria and hobbled by instability at home, France was desperate to maintain its independence from both the Soviet Union and the United States, Ruane said.
But the former French leader's memoirs showed nothing about the proposal, said François Lafon, a history professor at the Sorbonne in Paris and a Mollet biographer. Lafon suggested it was probably just a political tactic to press the British to firm up their role for the imminent attack on Egypt, whose leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the French accused of supporting the Algerian insurgents.
But even under the circumstances, the suggestion that France would accept the British Queen struck historians as bizarre.
Mollet was a socialist, and leftist Frenchmen looked to the execution of their king Louis XVI as one of the crowning achievements of the French Revolution. They would have been unlikely to welcome a foreign monarch with open arms. "It must have been some kind of eccentric gesture," Vinen said.
A year after Britain turned down France's proposed merger, the French joined the Common Market, the European Union's predecessor. By the time Britain tried to join the group seven years later, Charles De Gaulle had largely revived France's international standing, even as Britain's economy continued to stagnate. De Gaulle vetoed Britain's attempts to join the European Economic Community — twice.
"In retrospect, the irony of this was that the losers were the British," Vinen said. "Maybe we'd be in a better position being ruled by Charles de Gaulle in 1965 than Harold Wilson."
Not all Frenchmen were so sure.
"Can you imagine?" said Jose-Alain Fralon, author of "Help, the English are invading!" "What would the English tabloids do if they could no longer tell stories about the froggies, and what about those French who blame everything on the English?"
The British, he added, are "our most dear enemies" and "we would lose all of the saltiness in our relationship" had the two countries merged.
Still, he said, the two peoples complement each other marvelously.
"Roast beef and frogs don't go together in the same dish. But frogs' legs as a starter and a good roast beef as the main dish — c'est merveilleux," he said.
The documents, which have been unclassified for more than 20 years, were found by a BBC producer late last month.
The new flag, of course, would have been the Union Jacques.
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