In this interview excerpt, Francis Gutmann, an official in the French Foreign Ministry from 1951 to 1957 and Secretary-General of the External Relations Ministry from 1981 to 1985, discusses the nature of Franco-British relations in the field of defence from the establishment of Western European Union (WEU) in 1954 to the purchase of US Polaris missiles by the United Kingdom in 1962, a move which revealed fundamental differences between the two states and had an impact on discussions within WEU.

In this interview excerpt, Francis Gutmann, an official in the French Foreign Ministry from 1951 to 1957 and Secretary-General of the External Relations Ministry from 1981 to 1985, describes France’s position on the relationship between Western European Union (WEU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) with regard to major defence issues. He emphasises France’s desire to strengthen WEU in order to provide a framework for European defence and mentions the organisation’s role in the area of armaments, particularly from an industrial viewpoint.

In this interview excerpt, Francis Gutmann, an official in the French Foreign Ministry from 1951 to 1957 and Secretary-General of the External Relations Ministry from 1981 to 1985, emphasises the reasons for France’s withdrawal from the integrated command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the impact of this decision on the importance of Western European Union (WEU) as a political forum for defence matters.

In this interview excerpt, Francis Gutmann, an official in the French Foreign Ministry from 1951 to 1957 and Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry from 1981 to 1985, explains that he sees Article V of the Modified Brussels Treaty, signed in 1954, and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty or Washington Treaty, signed in 1949, as complementary. These articles both provide for automatic military assistance between the members of the organisation in the event of an attack on any one of them.