Anglais VO

Anglais VO – Anglo-French Relations Re-visited from a Geopolitical perspective: From Empire to Post-Brexit

Enseignante : Hanene ZOGHLAMI-OUESLATI

Course description: The aim of the course is to explore the major geopolitical imperatives and constraints that Britain has from the early 19^th century to the present day in light of its relations with France. Britain is a small island on the edge of a large continent: the European continent. And this has been a major factor and a chief force on the British Isles. During most of its history, Britain was not a unified island. So maintaining its unity has always been a key imperative. The British thinker responsible for formulating geopolitical perspectives Sir Halford Mackinder identified the geographical pattern of political history. He showcased that: “Britain is part of Europe, but not in it.”  The course will examine the way the relationship with Europe in general and France in particular is framed by a geopolitical paradox. British grand strategy, therefore, is to maintain a large naval force, but beyond that, the UK does what it can on the European continent to discourage hegemony on the mainland by preventing coalitions from forming, or by fomenting rivalries.  On another note, Britain lacked many of the resources needed to survive. That is one of the reasons why it has always been important for Britain to engage with the rest of the world and to build a global empire. This issue as well as maintaining military and overseas markets and having the economic capabilities to achieve that through its geopolitical engagement with France are among the themes examined in this course.

The issues to be explored involve the following: Why were France and Britain engaged in a geopolitical rivalry from the age of Empire to the present? Why were Franco-British bilateral relations troublesome during most of the 19^th century? What was the nature of the relationships between Britain and France in the first half of the 20^th century? Where did France stand in Churchill’s geopolitical landscape and where was Britain located in De Gaulle’s geopolitical vision? What was the impact of Britain’s geopolitical transition in the cold war on its relations with France? 

The module will also tackle the geopolitics of Britain through joining then leaving the EU and their repercussions on France and examine Franco-British relations in light of the Commonwealth, AUKUS, CANZUK, and the reshaping of the UK’s geopolitical strategy after Brexit.

Course objectives and learning outcomes:

• Students will acquire advanced knowledge about British geopolitics.
• Learners will develop advanced conceptual and analytic skills, techniques and subject knowledge required to explore the intersection of geography, power and politics in the context of the Franco-British complex relations.
• Examine leading secondary sources and locate the main problematic of the course within the wider historical and political debates.
• Engage in coherent and argumentative written assessments which reflect the grasp of the core debates.
• To encourage students to think critically.

Reading list:

Richard Davis, “Franco-British Relations and Rivalries: One-upmanship, Schadenfreude and the Weight of History”, Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique, 2022: https://doi.org/10.4000/rfcb.8659

Geoffrey Sloan, Geopolitics, Geography and Strategic History (Routledge, 2018)

Benjamin Martill and Uta Staiger, Brexit and Beyond: Rethinking the Futures of Europe (UCL, 2018): https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10041784/1/Brexit-and-Beyond.pdf

Brian Blouet, Global GeostrategyMackinder and the Defence of the West (Routledge, 2006)

Robert Tombs and Isabelle Tombs, That Sweet Enemy: The British and the French from the Sun King to the Present (Knopf, 2007)

Otte, T.G. “From war in Sight To Nearly War: Anglo-French Relations in the Age of High Imperialism, 1875-1898, Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol, 17, 2006, 693-714.

Approfondissement des connaissances culturelles du monde anglophone.