FRENCH AIR FORCE
After the defeats and divisions of WWII, the Armée de L’Air struggled for aircraft and a role for them. Ironically, breaking away from NATO united the force behind a single aim
At the end of the Second World War the Armée de L’Air, like the French nation itself, was deeply damaged and divided. Parts of the Armée de L’Air had gone into exile with the Allies, some serving with the Soviets, but the majority flew with the Free French Forces in Western Europe. More had stayed in France under the Vichy Government, who had initially remained neutral (while defending their air space against Allied intruders) and later fought openly against the Allies in North Africa, Madagascar and the Middle East. The rifts between the different factions were slow to heal. Rapid demobilisation and re-organisation was needed to merge the former factions into a coherent whole, but political instability further undermined reconstruction. The air force would go through more than a dozen major reorganisations in 15 years as they struggled to re-establish France’s place in the world.
Time was against the Armée de L’Air from the start. Even before the formal Japanese surrender in September 1945, a rebellion was breaking out in French Indo-China (Vietnam). Air power would be an important part of the campaign, offering close air support, reconnaissance, troop transporting and supply dropping to the forces on the ground, although it would be the failed defence of an airfield at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 that would see final French defeat. At that time, another war for independence, in Algeria, was starting, and in 1956 France was also involved in the coalition attack on Egypt. The constant friction of these low-intensity but persistent commitments would interfere with attempts to focus on the future.
Only in the 1960s did the Armée de L’Air find itself with a clear role and identity, as France announced a new defence posture. A founder member of NATO in 1948, in the 1950s the country become fully integrated into its command structure. However, from 1959 President Charles De Gaulle began a staged withdrawal from the military structures, wishing to gain greater independence from the (as they saw it) American-dominated NATO. By 1967, all non-French NATO forces had been evicted from France, including nuclear weapons. To replace the loss of defence, France developed an independent nuclear deterrent, testing its first bomb in 1960. From 1964, the Armée de L’Air took on responsibility for maintaining the deterrent, with their Dassault Mirage IV strike aircraft.
The new stance was unequivocal, and the Armée de L’Air was moulded around it with a clear-cut mission in mind
