Making France Global, 1974-83

“Making France Global, 1974-83” explores France’s attempt to remake itself from a great into a global power. In the 1970s, Paris jettisoned its past embrace of imperial modes of power and set  up innovative arrangements to create and control norms in a globalizing world. In economic affairs, French policymakers used European integration to force a global turn to economic liberalism. In geopolitics, Paris pioneered global summitry to help settle the Euromissiles Crisis and to reaffirm itself at the center of the Western alliance. France also created multilateral trade structures to maintain influence in its former colonies. This technocratic approach to world politics allowed France to shape the end of the Cold War and the rise of global neoliberalism.