France and the Mediterranean epicentre of the “crisis of the West,” 1973–1976

In the mid-1970s, the succession of crises affecting all the shores of the Mediterranean at the very moment when the naval capabilities of the USSR were reaching their peak and when neutralism was enjoying immense success in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa led the United States, then in the throes of the post-Vietnam crisis, to make France its main ally in the Mediterranean. The aim was to protect NATO’s southern flank and to safeguard Western interests at a time when the oil crisis was weakening the economies of developed countries. While relations between Paris and Washington had cooled considerably in 1973, French and American actors in the field of security and international cooperation worked more closely together than ever between 1974 and 1976. Military issues, human rights and the environment were at the heart of the new French strategy for collective security in the Mediterranean. This strategy was also based on an in-depth dialogue with the USSR and an increasingly dynamic armament of Arab and Southern European countries.