Georges Pompidou and the ambiguities of détente, 1970–1973

In the early 1970s, the non-aligned Mediterranean countries, led by Gaddafi’s Libya and Dom Mintoff of Malta, pushed France to implement its anti-bloc policy, opting for a neutral stance in the Cold War. While President Georges Pompidou had no intention of calling into question French activism within the Mediterranean operations of the Atlantic Alliance, he mobilized new tools aimed at making his country appear as a major supporter of the anti-blocs approach while preserving Western interests: European political cooperation and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. In addition to arms sales to Arab and Southern European countries, the use of these European tools allowed France to save face, in a context of Soviet omnipresence in the region.