French Foreign Policy and its Tendencies While Approaching International Relations Through Multilateralism

This paper studies the pattern of French foreign policy with respect to one objective: whether through the means available – namely economic, diplomatic, and military – it adheres to the principle of achieving multilateral goals or not. The multilateral institutions that are used in this study as a ground for comparison are NATO, the E.U., and the U.N. all of whom hold France as their member. Nine different categories with distinct characteristics are created that contain one primary case study. Certain expectations on how France could deal with the nation in a particular case study is gathered through hints contained in The French White Paper on Defence and National Security as well as various open-source materials. Subsequently, the means used to achieve French foreign policy goals are studied through and through using both primary and secondary evidence. While means used through multilateral means to attain multilateral goals secure a positive score, failing to do so sees a negative score on French foreign policy scorecard. An average is computed at the end of each case study where a positive score signifies French adherence to multilateralism and vice versa. The time frame stretches from 2008 to 2024. Although the lack of sufficient cases has rendered the results of the study inconclusive, this study nevertheless helps achieve a novel outlook with regard to how foreign policy is perceived.