Abstract

Previous scholarly works pointed to the connection between the failure of the European Defence Community and the Indochina conflict, but no one has analyzed the development of this link. What were the repercussions of the Indochina-EDC link on the policies of the three French Foreign Ministers who succeeded each other between 1950 and 1954? How did international and national events influence the French Foreign Ministry in its dealings with the Indochina-EDC link? Based on evidence from the unpublished diplomatic archives of the Quai d'Orsay, this thesis sheds new light on the significance of the Indochina-EDC link. Foreign Ministers Robert Schuman, Georges Bidault and Pierre Mendès-France had to deal with the EDC and the Indochina questions under severe international and national constraints arising from economic problems, political instability in Paris and Cold War tensions. Foreign Minister Schuman used the EDC-Indochina link to advance France's policies. The lack of progress on the EDC proposal and French setbacks in Indochina undermined the efforts of his successor, Georges Bidault. Mendès-France, Bidault's successor, had to promise to find quick solutions to both problems. This paper explains how the EDC first served France's imperial policy, but turned into a political liability that finally led to the dramatic end of France's involvement in the Indochina conflict and to the rejection of the EDC proposal by France, guaranteeing the fall of the Fourth Republic and precipitating the end of Franco-American cooperation.