‘Archimedes de Gaulle. Go on, Konrad, mess up his circles!’ On 14 January 1963, General de Gaulle holds a press conference at the Élysée Palace in which he states his opposition to the United Kingdom’s accession to the European Common Market. Five days later, German cartoonist Ernst Maria Lang illustrates how France’s partners in the EEC are trying to soften France’s position. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak are encouraging Konrad Adenauer (wearing a Greek helmet with plume, armed with a shield and a two-edged sword) to put an end to General de Gaulle’s highly idiosyncratic vision of the question of Europe. De Gaulle, portrayed as Archimedes, the great mathematician of ancient Greece, sums up his ideas in circles drawn on the ground: ‘De Gaulle the king’, the Cross of Lorraine, ‘Eurofrance’, ‘France’, ‘Carolus Magnus’. The writing on the wall also reflects the oversized ego of the French President: ‘Carolus est Europa’, ‘Carolus est (stultus) magnus’.