Edward Leigh: ...to devote massive resources to helping them. We are also paying the price of decades of failure to invest in clean nuclear energy. In the wake of OPEC and the oil crisis in the 1970s, France’s Gaullist Prime Minister Pierre Messmer realised how vulnerable his country was, and ordered a huge upscaling of French nuclear energy. As a result, France now has a cheaper, cleaner energy supply,...
Lord Liddle: ...think—we should work with our European allies and partners to develop greater European strategic autonomy. Some deride President Macron’s advocacy of European strategic autonomy as a typically Gaullist and anti-American thing. I can see friends nodding on the other side of the House. Or they see it as a federalist project with which we should have nothing to do whatever. But in my...
the Earl of Sandwich: ..., as we have heard more than once today. France and Germany will become the key European axis, with the UK now at one remove. But we must stay close to President Macron, who seems to have a Gaullist streak—although the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said that he is a listening President. He certainly needs more external distractions at the moment and his position at home is precarious;...
Lord Anderson of Swansea: ...tried, after the 1957 treaty of Rome, to find an alternative. I was in the Foreign Office when we built up EFTA but soon realised we were in a cul-de-sac that led absolutely nowhere. We had the two Gaullist vetoes, sought entry on our own terms, and then, eventually, had the referendum of 1975, which confirmed our membership of the European Economic Community. Alas, on 23 June, we went...
Lord Dykes: ...soon and whom I also know, so informally my noble friend is also representing me at this occasion. It is a very good Anglo-French occasion anyway and Josselin De Rohan, like most members of the Gaullist or UMP party in Paris, is an enthusiastic European as well as a patriotic Frenchman. The two go side by side in France with most people. I do not know why some people in this country seem...
Martin Horwood: ...love everything that comes out of the European Union. I simply regard it as another level of authority with which we must negotiate gently and carefully, rather than necessarily taking the rather Gaullist approach that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are taking today.
Lord Lawson of Blaby: ...structural changes, which undoubtedly are required, nevertheless anything that is put forward that would damage the City of London as a global financial centre is unacceptable to us. In the best Gaullist way, we would not abide by it. Secondly, on the question of Greece, the unanimous view of the eurozone-I think that it is the view of the Greek Prime Minister, too-is that the Greeks must...
Lord Howell of Guildford: ...of the list is not wise. I think that your Lordships recognise that. De Gaulle said that the people of France should have a certain idea of their country. You do not have to buy the whole of the Gaullist agenda to realise that Charles de Gaulle had the right thought as a leader. In a sense, the issue is even more acute today. People feel buffeted by global issues over which they know that...
Kelvin Hopkins: ...discuss that during our presidency. Last week, I said that the appointment of Dominique de Villepin as French Prime Minister marked an interesting change; it was a move to someone who is much more Gaullist than liberal. Even as I spoke, he was addressing the Assemblée Nationale, saying the sort of things that I would say if I were in his position. He suggested that there should be a more...
Kelvin Hopkins: ...Central Bank. Interestingly, after the French referendum decision, the French President replaced former Prime Minister Raffarin with Dominic de Villepin. The new Prime Minister is allegedly a Gaullist, or at least his Gaullism is stronger than his economic liberalism. He is committed to the state—l'état—which he sees as being above the market. That represents a significant change in...
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: ...Union has had and will certainly not be the last—is also an opportunity to debate strategic priorities. We also ask Her Majesty's Government to do their best to combat the dreadful and negative Gaullist attempt to go back to the old stereotypes of Anglo-Saxon capitalism versus the European social model. There is no single European social model. The French model is not that which governs...
Lord Biffen: ...are today holding up the mirror against Turkey. We should also hold the mirror up against the existing European Union and its practices and, in my view, the great need for it to become more like a Gaullist Europe des patries. Ultimately, it will not be resolved in these short debates. It will be taken to the British public through a referendum, and upon their good sense and instinctive...
David Curry: ...our role will be enhanced and we will benefit from a Commission that is undermined is not sensible, which is why the search for a new president of the Commission is so important. There is a certain Gaullist imprint on the constitution. It is with regard to the economy that my concerns are most serious. I leave aside the issue of red lines and endorse what my colleagues and the Government...
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: ...Partnership can come only from a more coherent European grouping; and as British participants in the transatlantic debate we have to insist that there is partnership and not deliberate rivalry. The Gaullist rhetoric that comes from Paris is deeply damaging in its own way. It arouses a counter-paranoia in Washington about a deep suspicion of French and European motives, which is also very...
Stephen Dorrell: I am sorry, but they did. The Maastricht treaty was endorsed by referendum in France by a very tiny majority. Given that history and the French tradition of referendums, in particular under the Gaullist party, it would be a brave Government in France who sought to carry the proposals through against the advice of a Gaullist President, without a referendum.
Andrew Tyrie: ...as it then was—in the beginning. The French have always thought of the EU as an opportunity to exercise disproportionate influence by acting as a guiding force on the Franco-German alliance. The Gaullist tradition is still strong in French foreign policy making. De Gaulle said of the then EEC: "Europe is a coach and horses. Germany is the coach. France is the coachman." He would...
Baroness Park of Monmouth: ...may feel that it continues to have some influence in, and understanding of, those countries. Their transatlantic orientation may also help to protect NATO from a move from the French—still very Gaullist in their attitude to Russia and the US respectively—to attempt to supplant NATO by a European security and defence policy benefiting by Russian heavy lift. It would not succeed but it...
Lord MacKenzie of Culkein: ...the French really believed that Saddam could be disarmed by the weapons inspectors in the absence of a threat of force. The alternative is that French foreign policy has become more redolent of the Gaullist era than of a modern Europe where countries can and must work together. There will never be disarmament of Saddam's regime in the absence of force. How did the French think Saddam's...
Mr Donald Anderson: ...by the UK Government even before the Iraqis did. That approach, which has led to a crisis in the international organisations and put at risk the transatlantic alliance, is based essentially on a Gaullist view of the world—the idea that Europe can be an effective rival or counterweight to the megapower of the United States. France has played into the hands of Saddam Hussein by blocking...
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: ...with an incentive to get together. If we want to have a second chamber, how shall we persuade leaders of the opposition to go on a regular basis to wherever it may be held? There is also the Gaullist idea which is very clearly behind many of the French proposals in this direction that only national assemblies can represent the nations and peoples of Europe. The idea comes from all that old...
