Evolution of the Traditional Determinants of the French Foreign Policy in the Fifth Republic

Abstract

The article presents the author’s classification of traditional determinants
of the French foreign policy. It contains nine different aspects of French
activities on the international arena: sovereignty and independence,
security, power status, colonialism, étatisme and protectionism, universalism,
egalitarianism, elitism and European integration. Presenting the evolution
of those determinants from a historical perspective, the author proves that
they still are a credo of the Fifth Republic foreign policy. The conclusion is
an opinion that the determinant which has had the biggest influence on all
the other ones since the 2nd World War was the latest of them, i.e. European
integration. The idea of European unity which existed in the French policy
as early as the Middle Ages becomes the determinant of the Fifth Republic’s
external actions that influences a redefinition of all the other determinants
in the late 20th century and, as a positive feedback, leads to a change in the
French foreign policy.