M. le Maire, Mr. Co-Chairmen.
We are making history together this evening. For one thing, we are celebrating the first joint conference of the Franco/British Council. The presence tonight of so many distinguished people augurs well for the Council's important work. I hope that this first Conference will be followed by many others.
On a more personal note, I am told that this is the first time a British Prime Minister, speaking in that capacity, has made a speech in Bordeaux. I find it hard to believe, M. le Maire, that this is true. Can my predecessors really have been so insensible to the charms of your lovely city and of its most famous product (which has so often eased the burden both on those who have to make speeches after dinner and on those who have to listen to them). But if they were, I am delighted to be able to repair their omission.
I am sure that M. Barre will agree that there could be no more appropriate city than Bordeaux for a meeting of the France/British Council. From Bordeaux continental France looks out to the Atlantic, the route by which French soldiers and seamen set out to found a maritime empire which—like Britain's—circled the world. Bordeaux and Aquitaine helped to give England one of her greatest dynasties—the [end p1] Plantagenets. The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry of Anjou ensured that France, and Bordeaux in particular, were closely associated with England for many years and, in particular, with a vital stage in the creation of the English system of government. One member of the dynasty founded by Henry and Eleanor, Richard II, is also known to history as Richard of Bordeaux—his birthplace.
No other city in France, therefore,—except perhaps the tragic cities of Artois and Picardy where a generation of British youth died in the defence of a common cause—symbolises more vividly the links which have bound our two countries for a thousand years.
The stream of French influence, continued over many centuries and often flowing through Bordeaux, ensured that England did not become an introverted Anglo-Saxon kingdom cut off on a foggy island from the main stream of European history. Instead, French habits, fashions, words and modes of thought so penetrated English life that they now form an indissoluble part of our culture. In the centre of London stands our national shrine, Westminster Abbey. It is a building whose style is as French as any to be found in France (although I admit that down the years it has acquired an English accent). And to this day our laws have no effect until it has been signified in Parliament that “La Reine le veult” . [end p2]
The stream of cultural and political influence has not, of course, run in one direction only. The inspiration of modern French democratic thought is to be found at least in part in British institutions and in the ideas of Hobbes and Locke as interpreted by Montesquieu and Voltaire. French science and industry owe much to the philosophical and practical genius of Newton and his successors in my country. The well springs of the French Romantic movement of the nineteenth century are in Byron and Scott and Shakespeare. (Let me acknowledge in passing the debt which we in Britain owe to Victor Hugo for persuading the French that our national poet Shakespeare was something more than a disorganised scribbler of bloodthirsty melodrama.)
For a thousand years, then, our destinies have been linked. In the course of that time each of us has forged the strongest sense of identity as a nation. And it is right that that should be so. Each has developed distinctive, even idiosyncratic institutions. After all, we have some members of the House of Lords here this evening. Each has the strongest sense of national purpose. Britain and France forged the idea of the modern nation state. After China and Japan we are two of the oldest nation states in the world. With that inevitably goes pride and—let us be frank—a degree of wilfulness.
For two proud nations living side by side are bound to be rivals. And so it has been with Britain and France. We have quarrelled down the centuries over many issues, great and small. Since the middle ages we have competed in Europe and in the world beyond. Awareness of the other's justified claims to excellence has in a way sharpened our rivalry. [end p3]
The Issues of Today
Yet Mr. President, it is our common interests, not our past rivalries, which need to be emphasised now. For it is my strongest conviction that, in the dangerous world in which we live, cooperation among neighbours is essential to the protection of our own most vital interests. I do not, of course, believe that the day of the great European nation state is over. France and Britain, Germany and Italy, Spain and others, will each continue to make their distinctive contribution to the civilisation of the world. Not for us the grey collectivism and uniformity which has been imposed on Eastern Europe. We value the richness which flows from our diversity.
But this is an age of super-powers and superweapons; an age when pressure on the world's resources of food, energy and essential raw materials grow day by day; it's an age when our democratic systems and cultures are increasingly threatened and derided by those who appreciate the benefits of neither. At such a time and in such a world it is no longer possible for even the greatest European nation to stand wholly on its own. We all know this. And it is why France and Britain and the other present and future members of the European Community have resolved, in the words of the Treaty of Rome, to pool their resources to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty, and to ensure the economic and social progress of their countries by common action. [end p4]
The European Community
Over the centuries Europe has owed much to our two countries. The Ile de France and the Island of Britain can lay some claim to have been, in different epochs, the last redoubt of the European spirit, and to have kept that spirit alive. The contributions we have made to Europe's civilisation are too numerous even to attempt to summarise. The European Community itself springs directly from the political experience and practices of our two countries. It represents an ambitious attempt to construct a new kind of political organisation based on the fundamental principles which we have fashioned—the principles of democratic liberty and the rule of law, of free trade and of economic solidarity. It is perhaps the most original practical political concept to be brought forth by the European genius since the American and French Revolutions. Some of you might say that Marxism was a political concept but I've never accepted that it was and, of course, it was fashioned by man who lived in freedom and never endured the practice of the system which he practised. Beyond those things, the Community is a grand effort to recreate institutions expressing the fundamental reality of Europe and of the European spirit.
Speaking within a few miles of the birthplace of Jean Monnet (Cognac is another place name well known after dinner in Britain) I need hardly extol the part played by France in the establishment and development of the Community. Nor, before this audience, need I dwell on the support for Europe's democratic and libertarian traditions which I think British membership has brought. Suffice it to say that a Community without France and Britain as full and equal members now seems to me inconceivable. [end p5]
Like any viable institutions, the Community has had to demonstrate in the last twenty years its ability both to respond to challenge and to adapt to change. The 1973 enlargement, for example, was bound to bring problems. The interests of the new members had to be reconciled with the arrangements which the existing members had worked out for themselves. The imbalance of policies which had led to Britain becoming by far the largest net contributor to the Community has been recognised by our partners. The arrangements which were agreed last May have given us time to devise more durable solutions.
I know that in France, as well as in Britain, there is dissatisfaction with the distortions which have arisen in the working of the Common Agricultural Policy. We need reforms which will enable that policy to meet its objectives without wasting money on unnecessary and sometimes damaging surpluses. [end p6]
But this is not enough. We need new initiatives as well. We need policies outside agriculture which will develop the scope for common action and produce a better balance in the way the Community disposes of its resources. And we must do this without prejudicing those efforts which national governments and individuals are better able to make. We must do it without a further increase in the bureaucratic regulation by which nowadays we are all too tightly bound—whether at the Community level, the national level, or the level of local government. [end p7]
I think those reforms are important in themselves. But they are also a means to an end. Europe needs a sound economic base if it is to resume its rightful place as the master of its own destiny and an arbiter of world affairs. We must be strong if we are to defend our interests and to advance the case for order and the rule of law in a world where disorder and lawlessness are every day more widespread.
The full development of that strength will require the nations of Europe to develop wise, coherent and mutually beneficial policies. I do not pretend that this will be easy. Beginning of section checked against BBC Radio News Report 0000 20 September 1980.
There'll inevitably be divergences of national interest between France and Britain, as between any other member states. It'll need understanding and forbearance to resolve these. But the role of France and Britain in the European enterprise is literally vital. Our differences must not—and I am determined that they will not—be allowed to obscure the longer-term benefits and the external dangers. End of section checked against BBC Radio News Report 0000 20 September 1980.
As my name perhaps implies I am more interested in construction than demolition. I am a Thatcher and thatchers want to build a solid and weatherproof structure well able to resist the storms which lie ahead and apparently outside.
The outside world is under no illusions about what has been achieved already. And Europe's importance is growing with the largest trading bloc in the world. We have agreements with countries in every continent; and the list of candidates for new agreements is growing. We are playing a leading role in the conduct of relations between East and West; in the search for a solution in the Middle E* and in the [end p8] negotiations between the developed and the developing countries. Within the Community we sometimes lament that Europe has no foreign policy. But those outside find that lament difficult to understand.
East-West relations and defence
So far, I have spoken of ‘Europe’ and ‘the Community’ as if the terms were interchangeable. They are not. There are nine countries in the Community. But thirty-three European countries will be attending the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Madrid. These countries, too, have shared in the European experience for centuries past. Today, a number of them live under regimes which, because they are tied to the Soviet superpower, prevent them from developing their European identity to the full.
The tragic division of Europe will not be shortlived. Of course its effects can be mitigated. We can and should promote trade, political, cultural and human contacts between the two halves of what should be one continent. We can and should pursue detente—provided we always bear in mind that detente is a two way process.
But we must be realistic. The military strength of the Soviet Union, both absolutely and relatively, has continued to grow. The moral, political and economic bankruptcy of Soviet Marxism is apparent to all. Events in [end p9] Kampuchea, in Afghanistan, in Cuba and in Poland have surely dispelled any lingering doubt on that score. But their ideological failure seems, if anything, to have increased the readiness of the Soviet Government to resort to arms. And events in Afghanistan daily underscore the point.
Those of us who live in Western Europe can't ignore the menacing accumulation of modern weapons and highly trained soldiers deployed on our doorstep. The deployments are said to be defensive. But so, allegedly, was the invasion of Afghanistan. There can be no confidence that the Russians will refrain from using their massive forces—if not for an armed attack, then as a means of political pressure on a weak and disunited Europe.
The Atlantic Alliance is a voluntary yet effective instrument of deterrence and defence. We must maintain its strength. It embraces countries like Germany, whose defence arrangements are wholly integrated into a common military structure, and France, which has chosen a different path. It contains two countries, Britain and France, who have remained determined to preserve strategic nuclear forces in Europe under their independent control, to supplement the nuclear umbrella provided by our American ally. And it is important we both continue with those independent nuclear deterrents. [end p10]
Britain and France have a very long history indeed of joint military activity! But for the last century and more, we have found ourselves, happily, on the same side of the battlefield. And for almost eighty years Britain has been fully committed to joint action with France in defence of our two countries and of Western Europe. The British Army of the Rhine is the successor and heir of the British Expeditionary Forces and Armies, which entered Europe through France in two world wars and which, alongside our French allies, fought to maintain freedom in Western Europe.
In recent years some aspects of our cooperation in the military field have marked time. But let me make it clear this evening that Britain stands ready at any time to develop fuller and closer defence cooperation with France. And meanwhile let us continue to build on our successful record in the joint production of military equipment because the cost of weapons systems will continue to increase and effective collaboration is an important means of reducing the burden. This is an area where Britain and France—together with the Federal Republic—have given, and should continue to give, a lead to Europe. [end p11]
Industrial Collaboration
Britain would also like to develop closer links with France in the civil industrial field. In many areas our countries could benefit from exchanging skills, know-how and resources. Already there are many examples of successful collaboration. There is Concorde and the Airbus project; our electricity industries are developing a new cross-Channel link. And many British and French companies have established themselves in each other's country. But there ought to be scope for more.
Britain is today, as in the past, a major source of inventiveness and innovation. We are at the forefront of new developments in pharmaceuticals, in electronics, in glass, in biotechnology, in avionics—even recently in the motor industry, to name but a few. Many of the latest techniques being used by industry worldwide are British in origin. Likewise, I know, there are many technologies where France has taken the lead. Together, and with better sharing of our several talents, our two countries would be a greater industrial force in the world. [end p12]
The World Outside Europe
The concerns of Europe cannot be limited to our continent alone. France and Britain, with their imperial past and their present world-wide responsibilities, are uniquely qualified to understand that. We know that, great though our economic problems are, we belong to the prosperous part of mankind. Most of our fellow men live in poverty. They have yet to enjoy the political and economic freedoms which we in Europe have won for ourselves over the centuries and which are the root cause of our prosperity.
The disparity in wealth between the richer nations of the world—many of them outside Europe, some of them in the Group of 77—and the poorer must be diminished. It is contrary to the principles of human dignity which underlie our own European civilization. It provides opportunities for the enemies of freedom to extend their influence. This disparity impedes the development of trade and this can only be to the disadvantage of all since, in the last analysis, the prosperity of any nation depends on its ability to trade successfully. [end p13]
It is therefore both morally and economically right that we should help the countries of the Third World to help themselves. The practical assistance which they need can and should take many forms and flow through many channels, both public and private. Our aim is to assist them to develop their economies, to exploit their resources and to educate their people. Where we can, we must also play our part in trying to resolve the burning political issues—both local and regional—which divert them from their other pressing tasks.
Of course, neither Britain and France, nor indeed the Europeans together, can tackle these problems alone. We have to work together with the other leading economic powers of the West, and especially with the United States and Japan. (Fortunately we have an informal instrument for this purpose—the annual economic summit which has resulted from the far-sighted initiative launched by President Giscard at Rambouillet in 1975.) And we must involve the oil producing countries—sometimes referred to as the “newly rich” . Their pressure on world energy prices has added greatly to the burdens of the poorer countries over the past decade and has equally diminished the ability of the industrialised countries to help them. [end p14]
These problems will be the subject of intense and growing activity in the next twelve months and in the years beyond. And our two countries have every reason to co-ordinate our approach as closely as possible.
Conclusion
Mr. President.
The tasks Europe faces today are as great as any that have confronted our continent in its long history. We politicians do what we can to solve them, and to mould the forces of history along the lines which we believe will most benefit the people we represent. In the past we have mainly worked within our nations, seeking to guide and [word missing] the support of our peoples and of the institutions they have evolved through the centuries. That support remains the basis of all political achievement.
But today we know that national institutions are no longer sufficient on their own; and we have set ourselves to construct other institutions which will bring our nations together for our mutual benefit. We know that this is a major task, and a slow one, not to be completed in a day or a decade. Indeed we know that the business of nations is never complete: we create new problems even as we solve the old ones.
The story of Franco/British relations is therefore still unfolding. Long may it continue to do so. Many, including I am sure the Franco/British Council itself, will have a hand in writing the next chapter. So let us, as we carry forward the work, take as one of our patrons Henry II Plantagenets, a great innovator, a great [end p15] builder and a King of England who was born and died in France. And let us, when we need encouragement, remember the words with which General de Gaulle concluded his memorable address to both Houses of Parliament at Westminster in 1960. I was present on that never to be forgotten occasion. He said: “What nations know better than France and Britain that the qualities which will save the world are precisely those which are theirs above all, wisdom and resolution.” In that spirit, I give you the toast to the President of the French Republic.