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France and the Claims for Social Harmonization in the European Economic Community 87
the country at a disadvantage in export markets. 10 While this article does not dispute
that French industry claimed social harmonization, it aims to show that the
French government had reasons of her own that were more far-reaching for claiming
social harmonization among the Six. 11
In Quest of Time
In spring 1955 France was governed by a centre-right coalition headed by Edgar Faure
of the Radical party. Less than a year had passed since the National Assembly had voted
down the European Defence Community (EDC) with a majority of 319 to 264 votes.
The dispute over the EDC had disunited the French people. In his memoirs, Robert
Marjolin depicts dinner parties in Paris where guests broke up and left in fury, and compares
the atmosphere to the one prevailing during the Dreyfus affair which began 60
years earlier. 12 National unity, restored at the time of the liberation, seemed once again
to be broken. When the Benelux-countries launched their memorandum in April the
following year, there was still considerable division over the question of European integration
both within the French government and in the National Assembly. Several of the
ministers were convinced Europeans. Among those were Antoine Pinay at the Quai
d’Orsay, Robert Schuman at the Ministry of Justice and Pierre Pflimlin at the Ministry
of Finance. It was Pinay’s government that had signed the Treaty of Paris on the setting
up of a European defence community in 1952, and Pinay had himself defended the
treaty in the debate in the National Assembly two years later. However, the Faure government
also included Gaullist ministers opposed to supra-nationality, opposed to the
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and opposed to the very person of Jean
Monnet. 13 The situation within the political leadership mirrored the one prevailing elsewhere
in French society. The Foreign Ministry was aware of the danger of presenting
the National Assembly with another insufficiently prepared proposal. The opinion was
that the EDC incident had made French opinion extremely sensitive to economic risks
in international politics. 14
The Benelux memorandum consisted of two parts. One stemmed from a proposal
launched by the Dutch foreign minister Jan Willem Beyen for a common
market among the members of the ECSC. The other part consisted of a suggestion
presented by his Belgian colleague, Paul Henri Spaak, for an extension of Europe-
10. P. M. PITMAN, ‘Un Général qui s’appelle Eisenhower’: Atlantic Crisis and the Origins of the European
Economic Community, in: Journal of European Integration History, Vol.6, 2(2000),
pp.37-59, p.44. See also Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (MAE), DE-CE 1945-60: 711, Note
pour Monsieur le Président de la Délégation française, 12.07.56.
11. Since France was the country that launched these claims, and since Germany was the one that accommodated
them, focus hereafter will be on these two countries only.
12. R. MARJOLIN, Le travail d’une vie. Mémoires 1911-1986, Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris 1986, p.274.
13. P. GERBET, La ‘relance’ européenne jusqu’à la Conférence de Messine, in: E. SERRA (ed.), The
Relaunching of Europe …, op.cit. p.71.
14. MAE, DE-CE 1945-60, 611, Note, 14.04.55.