Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2024

French And German Strategic Discourses At Crossroads: (Re)framing European Defence In The Context of the War in Ukraine

Résumé

In a world characterised by the return of war to the European continent since February 2022 and Russia's military aggression against Ukraine, Franco-German military cooperation has been put to the test more than ever. Indeed, the classic image of France and Germany as the driving force behind European defence and military cooperation that has emerged regularly since the end of the Cold War seems to have become more than just a recurring source of discussion. The latest developments around the SCAF project or the European Air Shield Initiative (ESSI) launched by Germany without consultation between the two states in October 2022 have tended to fuel the idea that Franco-German military cooperation is far from being as fluid as the political rhetoric has tried for several decades to make out.Yet these tensions between France and Germany, the original driving force behind European reconciliation, are nothing new. This paper will therefore draw on discursive institutionalism to analyse the strategic discourses developed by French and German governmental actors since February 2022 in order to understand how the rapid and far-reaching changes in German defence policy under the Zeitenwende are producing effects of dissonance between the strategic discourses and the operational means implemented by the two states, both in the military aid provided to Ukraine and in their way of conceiving European defence, between strategic autonomy and de facto dependence on NATO. This paper is empirically based on a field survey of around twenty-five qualitative interviews conducted in 2022-2023, nesides the content analysis of French and German strategic discourses and how they frame European defence in the context of the war in Ukraine.

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Dates et versions

hal-04853621 , version 1 (22-12-2024)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04853621 , version 1

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Delphine Deschaux-Dutard. French And German Strategic Discourses At Crossroads: (Re)framing European Defence In The Context of the War in Ukraine. 54th UACES Annual Conference 2024, University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES), Sep 2024, Trento, France. ⟨hal-04853621⟩

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