Revisiting France’s Commitment to Defence Integration: A Case of Political Functionalism

The paper offers greater scrutiny for and elucidates the conceptual and empirical ambiguity, which makes France too frequently appear as both a promoter of Europeanisation of defence and security and a loyal protagonist of independent state action. It is argued that the debate about the French-driven political integration of defence policy is generally a faux débat, insofar as it does not provide grounds for empirically sound inference. The paper underscores two significant reasons for that. First, onto the contemporary perception of Europeanisation has been too easily projected France’s historical position with regard to political integration. As the notion of strategic autonomy is context-dependent and therefore shifts across time, France’s past political vision of Europe as a defence actor needs not translating into the country’s effort to upload its strategic culture to the European level during the contemporary period, particularly as regards the most recent advances in the Common Security and Defence Policy. Secondly – and specifically –, the contemporary political dimension of integration lags behind the economic one and is significant to the extent that French defence industry interests become those of the country’s political elites. The focus on these issues allows for more adequate inferences about the present but also the future of the European Union's defence policy.