Is De Gaulle Selling Out to the Americans?

from Dave Windsor We are familiar with a view of General de Gaulle as basically anti-American - however, other views are being expressed in France just now, The popular new weekly L'Expresse has just accused de Gaulle of selling out to the Americans by permitting massive U.S. investment in French industry, The change in French policy coincided with the depart re of Valery Giscard ad'Estaing, the independent conservative Finance Minister, Mr, Giscard d'Estaing had been forced reluctantly to allow the General Electric Co, buy control of Machine Bull during 1964, but he had blocked any more take-overs by American firms, No official ban was ever announced: applications just gathered dust in the Finance Ministry, Firms such as Fords and General Motors waited in vain for approval for their investment plans and eventually gave up, seeking outlets elsewhere, Early in January last year, Mr, Giscard d'Estaing was replaced by the fully-fledged Gaullist, former Premier Michel Debre, Soon afterwards a subtle shift in policy was noticed, In March, Mr. Debre announced the formation of an ’ -administerial committee to study foreign-investment proposals, He also explained the French Government's guidelines - these were that investments would be approved which led to France's productive and technological capacity being improved, This did not really amount to a new policy, but what was different was the speed with which the Government then acted on applications, In the months that followed the Government approved the building of a Motorola semiconductor plant at Toulouse, the take-over of Raphael Parfums by Revlon, the take-over by the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation of the famous firm, Claude Paz et Visseaux, the building of an I.T. & T. plant at Chartres, and a Firestone plastic fibre plant. Word got round and American monopolies which had had the brush-off previously tried again, Phillips Petroleum won a quick go~ahead for a plastics venture with Kleber-Colombes, Henry Ford, number two, was invited to Premier Pompidou's residence and told that France would welcome a Ford plant, Towards the end of last year, Gereral Motors announced plans for a naw automatic-transmission plant at Strasbourg and that it would greatly expand its electrical-parts plant in Paris, In explaining this sharp change in French policy, American business journals have put the following reasons forward: (1) having failed to persuade her partners in the Common Market to adopt a common policy on the restriction of American investment, France decided that her own barriers were futile, Furthermore, after July, 1968, any American firm in one of the other Common Markets countries will be able to sell in France without tariff barriers, Thus France got the worst of both worlds; (2) France's balance of payments surplus has been declining; (3) France is in need of rapid technological advance if she is to face up to the new conditions after the tariff barriers drop in 1968, The latest figures of American manufacturers’ new investment in France are $243 million in 19653 $286 million in 1966; and $345 million in 1967. The total at the end of 1965 was $1, 58billion, French Government figures give an estimate of 10% of all productive capacity in the country being foreign controlled, American companies have by far the biggest share, With increasing unemployment in France the question has become a burning issue in recent weeks General Ulectric's attempts to cut its losses at Machine Bull has led to the demand for nationalisation of that firm from the unions,