Why did France Leave NATO?

The Cold War is often seen as two united sides facing off in an ideological battle for the future. Yet, as you might have guessed, this wasn't always the case, and both sides had their own more rebellious members.

In the case of the West, this was France, and their withdrawal from NATO in 1966 at the height of the Cold War is often discussed as an example of this. This course of action seems like it wouldn't have been a good idea at this point and thus raises the question -

WHY?

Why did France withdraw from NATO?

So, just to make it clear, despite what's often discussed, France didn't actually withdraw from NATO entirely but from its unified command structure. It was still fully committed to defending other NATO members in the case of war, and the command structure it had just left was created to lead and coordinate NATO's many militaries in the event of such a war

. At its head was the Supreme Allied Commander, who could be from any of NATO's member states, so long as that member state began with "United" and ended with "States of America."

Second in command was the Deputy Allied Commander, who could also be from any NATO country, but in reality, just Britain. This upset French President Charles de Gaulle, who felt that it would be nice if a Frenchman could gain the position at least once.

And so, in 1966, he withdrew French forces from NATO's unified command structure. This wasn't just done for the sake of pride, but because de Gaulle wanted to ensure French strategic independence.

He and many in the military were concerned that France would become reliant on NATO for operational planning and thus would no longer be self-reliant. For France's budding nuclear arsenal, this meant zero collaboration in terms of joint nuclear strategy with Britain and America.

In terms of conventional forces, France's leadership wanted the French army to be totally independent in terms of tactics, procurement, and policy. There were also concerns about placing French troops under the command of non-French leaders and how they would be used.

This concern wasn't exactly new either and was the reason that the French had withdrawn their navy from the unified command structure in the previous decade.

This all culminated in a small diplomatic row with the USA. When leaving NATO's command structure, de Gaulle also ordered all foreign troops out of France. President Johnson saw this coming, and when de Gaulle made the formal request for all American troops to depart France, his government's response was, "Does that include those in the cemeteries as well?"

Furthermore, France also banned the housing of American nuclear weapons on its soil. Importantly, these changes were incredibly popular with the French people, which is why no French leaders changed their arrangement for the rest of the century.

Now, this move wasn't France's first move towards leaving NATO altogether. In fact, de Gaulle had signed a secret agreement with the United States, promising that France would rejoin the unified command structure in the event of a Soviet invasion.

And while many NATO members were completely outraged at the French move, the American response was one of resigned disagreement.

In their eyes, NATO did not need France in it to survive, and the Johnson administration was convinced that it would only be five or ten years until France rejoined, although they'd have to wait slightly longer than that.