The oldest of these families comprises neo-Gaullists. For them, NATO remains the instrument of American power in Europe. French independence or, more simply, the rejection of the American model (liberal, capitalist, imperialistic, without frontiers . . .) makes it essential for France to stay as far away from the integrated organisation as it can. The approaches of the 1990s did not go well, and were criticised. This family brings together the two extremes of the political spectrum: the most vocal are the Communists on the left, and the followers of Jean-Marie Le Pen on the right. Their position has been marginalised, basically because no one any longer finds anything to discuss. The line is now defended only by a few diehard advocates of old-fashioned sovereignty.

The Atlanticists

The Atlanticists are another marginal family. There are almost no survivors left of those who were firstly (and above all) grateful to the Americans for having liberated the country in 1944; in 1966, when De Gaulle took his decision, this sentiment was still very much alive. Equally, there are few who remain of those who looked to the transatlantic link to counter the Soviet threat, since the latter has disappeared since 1990. This pro-American (and thus pro-NATO) school has almost wasted away. One could have grouped them with the pure liberals, but the latter concentrated on economic matters while the Atlanticists’ concern was with questions of politics and international security. Support for the Americans therefore tended to fade away, even if it has recovered a little since 11 September 2001.

Samuel P. Huntington’s theses, however simplistic they may be (which is, after all, par for the course for theories), found an echo in France and revived the notion of ‘the West’: the disquiet, when faced with the choice of a threat which could be terrorist or Islamist, has given renewed force to this current of thought. One can of course cite Jean-François Revel for his political liberalism. Laurent Muriawecsz is much less well known, and too close to Anglo-Saxon think tanks. But one must accept that this position is much more widely held than it appears; it seems that at the time of the Iraq affair fully 25 per cent of the Deputies of the parliamentary majority were in favour of following the United States’s lead (even if there was no debate on the question).