‘Expected visitors. Spaak, Luns, Fanfani, G. Ball. There you go, Couve, I’ve prepared a few notes for you to refer to during your meetings. No. And no!’ On 14 July 1965, as negotiations are held to find a solution to the empty chair crisis, French cartoonist Jacques Faizant illustrates the intransigence of General de Gaulle with regard to his European and American partners. Maurice Couve de Murville, French Foreign Minister, seems to have fairly little room for manoeuvre given the instructions of President de Gaulle (on the right).