Thierry Tardy is a Research Fellow and Professor at the Geneva Center of Security Policy (GCSP).
(This article is published in French only. Original title: 'La France et l'ONU, entre singularité et ambivalence')

Abstract

Singularity and ambivalence characterise the relationships between France and the United Nations Organisation (UNO) since 1945. Singularity, because France is one of the rare medium powers that belong to the Security Council and that use this position to materialise its original stand on the international stage. Ambivalence, because if France has largely reconsidered, in a positive way, the role of the United Nations since the end of the “gaullienne” era, and in particular since the end of the Cold War, the United Nations are used by Paris more as a mean to express and legitimise its policies, than as a frame where France can implement them, as it does within the European Union. In the American “hyperpower era”, however, the UNO and the Security Council are likely to play for a long time a central role in the definition of what France is and does in the world.