number 1 - Centre d'études et de recherches européennes Robert ...

48
Elena Calandri
policy" of Britain, which preferred a worldwide mercantile policy instead of joining
in European integration. He set the agenda for a union of Europe's industries.
"Ce projet – he conceded – ne peut malheureusement pas se réaliser en un seul stade.
Il y a lieu, croyons-nous, d'unir pour commencer les industries françaises, allemandes
et italiennes, auxquelles il sera ensuite possible de faire s'adjoindre les industries
belges, hollandaises, suédoises et espagnoles. A cette union seulement, il est possible
d'envisager l'adhésion de l'Angleterre qui, en maintenant sa position extérieure, se
trouverait dans une position extrèmement mauvaise. Ainsi se trouverait enfin réalisée
l'industrie aéronautique européenne complète, vers laquelle nous tendons". 35
On 8 October Adenauer accepted an invitation for German military experts to
go to France to visit a display devoted to French aircraft production. Subsequently
Parodi endorsed Cristofini's suggestion that weapons for the army be put on display
as well. Finally, the French upgraded the whole exercise which it was hoped could
be organized before Adenauer's visit to Paris for the Nine Power conference. It
would be transformed from a simple display of French products into an occasion
for in depth discussion of how to develop Franco-German technical cooperation. 36
Foreign Ministry zeal in the field of armaments did not occur in isolation but
rather as part of an ongoing movement towards a Franco-German entente, which
was to be sealed in October at the Adenauer-Mendès France meeting on the Saar
question. The meeting, held in the suburb of La-Celle-Saint-Cloud the day before
the opening of the Paris Conference, was in fact a turning point in bilateral relations.
The conversations touched upon the topics singled out in previous months at
the French Foreign Ministry as suitable for fruitful long-term cooperation. The two
leaders settled the Saar question, signed minor but symbolic agreements on cultural
cooperation, war graves and deportation victims and set the scene for far-reaching
economic relations.
They agreed upon an increase of French agricultural exports to Germany, the
creation of canals along the Moselle, the setting up of a Franco-German Economic
Committee specially designed to foster, as the official joint declaration put it,
"(...)la réalisation des plans élaborés, parfois depuis plusieurs années, par des groupements
économiques des deux côtés du Rhin en vue d'une étroite collaboration
des capitaux, des techniques et de l'industrie(...)" in Europe and overseas. 37
So France's German policy moved away from military security to the economic
sphere. Rapprochement with Bonn corresponded with Mendès France's prior
aim which was to put right France's economic situation. In the summer of 1954,
while he concentrated upon disentangling France from Indochina and the EDC
the Minister of Finance, Edgar Faure, had been sharpening the teeth of economic
measures launched in the spring and which centred upon tight budgets and eco-
35. AMAE Wormser, 86, Bernard Duperier, Note sur les situations respectives des industries aéronautiques
françaises et allemandes, to Mendès France, Parodi, Charpentier, 15 October 1954. He
argued that, after having recovered in London the right to built air craft on her territory, Germany
would abandon plans for North Africa, and admitted that owing to infrastructures and labour conditions,
plans for a big military industrial pole there were unrealistic.
36. AMAE, Wormser, 86, A. Parodi to François Poncet, no. 1061, 15 October 1954.
37. DDF, 1954, Annexes, no. 290; K. ADENAUER, Erinnerungen, pp. 444-445.