The new French interventionism

In the early 1990s, one of the principal features of the French military establishment was the extent of its commitment outside France's borders, and the encouragement it received to this end from President Frangois Mitterrand. This contrasted with the previous reticence and ambivalence about the engagement of troops outside France. This apparent change of heart had at least as much political as military justification, linked especially to France's relationship with the United Nations after the Cold War. Despite suggestions of accord, however, regarding France's military means and missions, troop deployments in the civil wars in Bosnia and Rwanda aroused considerable discord on political, military and financial grounds, and served to highlight the extent to which the presidential domaine reserve still applied in foreign and military affairs under Mitterrand as it had under his illustrious predecessor, Charles de Gaulle.