EDITH KURZWEIL
227
EK:
Yes . On the other hand, I assume, there is a certain conver–
gence of interests, just the same, between France and America, inso–
far as we are both democratic countries, more or less, and the Soviet
Union is not.
JK:
Yes , exactly . This was DeGaulle's position way back-to remain
in the Western bloc. There still is no problem with that, I think, even
if the socialist government questioned
it
in the beginning. Within
this bloc, however, the French want to preserve a sort of indepen–
dence. Other European countries do not have the same attitude, but
the same preoccupations . They express them in different ways , ac–
cording to their own traditions. In England,
it
is less necessary to
affirm autonomy towards the United States , maybe because people
share the same language and culture. The Italians , for example , can–
not allow themselves to be very independent. But the French remain
proud for having invented human rights, the independent bourgeois
state, and the real idea of left solutions - as a result of the French
revolution . It depends, of course, upon who formulates the position
for French independence. But even if a classical rightist government
were to govern France - and this probably soon will be the case - it
will maintain its independence, maybe in a less dramatic way . It will
be a question of rhetoric, but basically there is an agreement about
the national independence.
EK:
Yes , but still, when you talk of independence, you speak of an
independence that will not allow the Soviet Union to invade, if it had
the chance . And this is true for the right as well as the left, which is
in a way different from American leftists....
JK:
Exactly . It was very important for Mitterrand, for instance, that
the pacifist movement did not develop in France. The French think
that in the pacifist position there is a naivete about Soviet power. For
when pacifists say that they also want to prevent Soviet nuclear arms
experiments , it's just wishful thinking. They have no way to pressure
the Soviet government. This sort of naivete has not been very devel–
oped in France, although there is a small pacifist movement that is
dominated by the Communist Party. Almost everybody knows that
those people are, as we said in our Marxist days , objectively allied
with the Soviets. Yet, such movements exist in Britain, Germany
and Holland. Clearly, French independence is related to the United
States as well as to the Russians. But the balance is not often easily
maintained . In Third World situations the French position at times
seems quite ambiguous , and it is difficult to preserve national in–
dependence about the Third World against Americans and against
