Articles

France Wants to Join NATO to Ease the Way for European Defense

World Politics Review
April 23, 2008

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he will decide by late 2008 or early 2009 whether France will fully rejoin NATO. Even if Sarkozy has pro-American leanings, he also is thoroughly Europe-centric in his worldview; correspondingly, he has spelled out French conditions for rejoining NATO that are very similar to those of former French President Jacques Chirac: American acceptance of an independent European defense capability and a leading French role in NATO’s command structures. more