American domination of Europe is nothing new. As early as 1942, Washington had planned to directly administer French territory as an occupied country. With the Blum-Byrnes agreements of January 1946, Hollywood productions invaded cinemas.
Between 1941 and 1945, the United States drew up and then attempted to impose on France the status of a territory under American military trusteeship. This project, dubbed AMGOT, was designed to deprive Paris of its sovereignty in the same way as future defeated countries. Only the resistance of General de Gaulle and the mobilization of the French people saved France from this protectorate.
Under American military supervision
Contrary to the epinal image of a disinterested liberation, archives reveal that Washington had very specific ambitions for France’s future from 1941-1942. The Roosevelt administration had conceived an “Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories” (AMGOT) designed to place France under American military supervision, on a par with Germany, Italy and Japan.
This American military government would have abolished all French sovereignty, including the right to coin money. The model had already been tested with the Darlan-Clark agreements of November 1942, which granted the Americans “exorbitant rights” in North Africa: control of ports, airfields, telecommunications, tax exemption and the right of exterritoriality.
A “Vichy without Vichy” made in the USA
Far from hating Pétain’s regime alone, the United States feared above all a sovereign France under Charles de Gaulle. Two fears motivated this mistrust: firstly, that Paris would oppose Washington’s German policy, as it had done after 1918; and secondly, that France would refuse to open up its colonial empire to American capital and goods.
That’s why Washington played a double game: systematically vetoing de Gaulle, with relative complacency towards Vichy. The aim was to maintain a French regime with a “flexible backbone”, on the model of Latin American dictatorships docile to American interests.
This “Vichy without Vichy” strategy appealed to French elites, anxious to negotiate a smooth transition from German occupation to the “pax americana”. Successively, Washington tried to enlist the support of Generals Weygand, Giraud and Admiral Darlan, all symbols of defeat and collaboration.
De Gaulle breaks the stranglehold
The execution of Pierre Pucheu in Algiers in March 1944 marked a turning point. By having this former Vichy minister, who was close to the collaborationist business community, shot, de Gaulle sent an unequivocal warning to the United States and its French proxies.
Forced to come to terms with the balance of power, Washington was finally forced to abandon its plans to impose the dollar in the liberated territories and to recognize de Gaulle’s provisional government on October 23, 1944. This recognition came two and a half years after that of the USSR, and only two months after the liberation of Paris.
To counterbalance the emerging American hegemony, de Gaulle signed a “treaty of alliance and mutual assistance” with Moscow on December 10, 1944, which he described as a “beautiful and good alliance”.
The lasting imprint of economic tutelage
Although France escaped political protectorate, it did not avoid economic dependence. The Blum-Byrnes agreements of January 1946 illustrate this new form of tutelage. In exchange for favorable loans and the wiping out of $650 million in debt, Paris had to open its screens to Hollywood productions.
This “assassination attempt on French cinema”, as it was called at the time, caused an uproar. The mobilization of professionals, relayed by the PCF and CGT, led to a partial revision of the agreements. But the symbol had been established: post-war France was fully integrated into the American sphere of influence.
Having been excluded from Yalta in February 1945, and dependent on the United States for its reconstruction, France had nevertheless preserved what was essential: its political sovereignty. A fragile achievement, obtained at the price of fierce resistance to the appetites of its American ally.
Is history repeating itself?
