Abstract

French foreign policy between 1944 and 1948 is examined in terms of its successes in reasserting a French international identity reflecting a power capable of holding its own against the new superpowers of the world. Drawing upon the foreign policy documents of France and the United States, an image of French foreign policy as single-mindedly focused upon renewing identity by manipulating the negotiations over the future of Germany becomes clear. For the most part historians in the past have discussed this policy in terms of its shortcomings since France failed to gain many of its immediate goals. However, this thesis concludes that the immediate goals of French policy were simply a means to an end. The reassertion of French international interaction and the revival of French identity as free of foreign influence were the clear long term goals of foreign policy in the post-war period. As long as France maintained the balance between independence and foreign aid it viewed the policies of this period as a success.