Many: France and Germany

Adam Wielomski: After planet War II, the constant feature of French politics is the will to make a multipolar world, break Anglo-Saxon supremacy and make a European actor based on an alliance of 2 equal entities, namely France and Germany.

In fact, this concept breaks out in any ways only a organization led by the Le Pen family, focused only on France and claiming that Paris alone is capable of playing the function of a planet pole. This basis of French geopolitics is interesting adequate that French analysts and politicians are rather well aware of the difference in economical possible between France and Western Germany first and then united Germany erstwhile this difference has increased. This geopolitics stems from Paris' belief that France has 2 assets that Berlin does not have and in a timely manner cannot have due to the repercussions of the war's failure in 1945: a permanent seat on the UN safety Council (with veto law) and atomic weapons (as well as chemical and biological). It is besides believed that the French army is capable of offensive action, unlike Budeswehr. It is besides 3 times more numerous. The originality of this concept is that, contrary to popular opinion, the French believe that by utilizing a political position in the safety Council, atomic weapons and an army capable of combating, they are able to gain an equal position with Germany, despite their evident economical advantage. Let us remind that German GDP is $4374 billion erstwhile France only 2925 (data for 2018). The boldness of this concept is partially due to the different intellectual problem of the French towards Poles: erstwhile we have hard complexes due to being Poles, the French are even arrogant and arrogant of being citizens of large France, heirs of Louis XIV and Napoleon. Thus, erstwhile Poles permanently underestimate their potential, the French permanently overestimate it. The essence of being a Frenchman is the sense of “Grandeur”, or greatness.

Magdalena Ziętek-Welomska: I have been amazed at the French's belief that they will control this task in their own interest. Robert Schuman, who announced his plan to build the first European community in 1950, was convinced that the French would host this task and that it would be their tool for controlling the Germans, as well as limiting American influence in Europe. And what is amazing is that the French did not learn from how much Adenauer and the Americans were delighted with this task and stood on their heads so that in 1958 there would already be 3 European communities! Polish publications from those years, specified as Andrzej Kwilecki’s work “The thought of unifying Europe” from 1969 or Jan Zaborowski’s “Cryptonym “Europe” from 1963, are teaching here. These authors perfectly described the close cooperation of German and American circles in the implementation of European integration, which they were already the biggest beneficiaries. Through integration, Germany has restored its hegemonic position in the planet economy, and American companies have had more ease of movement in the common marketplace than in national markets, separated by cordon of different regulations, customs and another taxes. The function of France in this task was best summed up by John Laughland, the author of 1 of the best papers on this subject entitled "The Poisoned Sources of the European Union": "...the presence of France allows to hide German hegemony. The power of Germany by allying with France does not diminish, but increases. It is not without reason that these 2 countries talk of themselves as "motors of European integration". France is actually entering into relations with Germany partially due to this and partially due to the fact that European integration has become an escalator from which it was afraid to jump at the right time."

Think Poland, No. 45-46 (6-11.11.2022)

Photo by the president of France (public domain)