Francija se je leta 1966 po dolgoletnem trudu tedanjega francoskega predsednika Charlesa de Gaulla umaknila iz Nata. Francoske sile so se tega leta dokončno umaknile iz skupnih sil, Natove sile pa so se iz Francije leta 1967 morale umakniti v Belgijo, nadzor nad jedrskim orožjem pa je bil prenešen na Francijo:

NATO’s unity was breached early in its history with a crisis occurring during Charles de Gaulle‘s presidency of France.^[26] De Gaulle protested the strong role of the United States in NATO and what he perceived as a special relationship between it and the United Kingdom. In a memorandum sent to US President Dwight Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on 17 September 1958, he argued for the creation of a tripartite directorate, which would put France on an equal footing with the US and the UK.^[27]

Considering the response to be unsatisfactory, de Gaulle began constructing an independent defense force for his country. He wanted to give France, in the event of an East German incursion into West Germany, the option of coming to a separate peace with the Eastern bloc, instead of being drawn into a larger war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.^[28] In February 1959, France withdrew its Mediterranean Fleet from NATO command,^[29] and it later banned the stationing of foreign nuclear weapons on French soil. That caused the United States to transfer 300 military aircraft out of France and to return control of the air force bases that it had operated in France since 1950 to the French by 1967.

Though France showed solidarity with the rest of NATO during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, de Gaulle continued his pursuit of an independent defense by removing France’s Atlantic and English Channel fleets from NATO command.^[30] In 1966, all French armed forces were removed from NATO’s integrated military command, and all non-French NATO troops were asked to leave France.^[31] The withdrawal forced the relocation of SHAPE from Rocquencourt, near Paris, to Casteau, Belgium, by 16 October 1967.^[32] France remained a member of the alliance and committed to the defense of Europe from possible Warsaw Pact attack with its own forces stationed in West Germany throughout the Cold War. A series of secret accords between the US and French officials, the Lemnitzer–Ailleret Agreements, detailed how French forces would dovetail back into NATO’s command structure if East-West hostilities broke out.

…

France announced its return to full participation at the 2009 Strasbourg–Kehl summit.^[35]

Vir: Wikipedia

Francijo je pod de Gaullom motila predvsem dominantnost dvojca ZDA – V. Britanija v Natu ter da bi v primeru vojaške eskalacije Francija morala sodelovati v vojni, ki ni njena. Natanko to narativo je ponovno vzpostavil Macron v intervjuju za Politico ob odhodu iz uradnega obiska v Kitajski.

Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”

He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy”…

Gre zgolj za prazno retoriko, ali pa bo Francija dejansko zavzela nekdanjo degolistično avtonomijo in ekvidistanco do ZDA na eni ter do Kitajske in Rusije na drugi strani? Macron je sicer znan po svoji nenaklonjenosti Natu, ki ga je pred tremi leti označil kot “brain-dead”.