Introduction

While post-2010 Russian actions in Syria, Libya and Crimea evoke discourses of a “new Cold War,” they also highlight enduring strategic imperatives rooted in the USSR’s naval and ideological presence. In France, this resurgence has spurred renewed academic and policy-oriented inquiry, though paradoxically, French historiography has marginalized the Mediterranean dimension of Cold War policy, focusing instead on European or colonial contexts. This study therefore proposes a historiographical rebalancing, analysing French Mediterranean policy between 1962 and 1985 – a period bounded by Algerian independence, détente and the emergence of new regional crises. By embedding French policy within the conceptual framework of the “Global Cold War,” the research emphasizes the Mediterranean as a strategic interface where East–West and North–South dynamics intersect.