France and the Construction of Europe 1944-2007

<p> In the second half of the twentieth century France played the greatest role - even greater than Germany's - in shaping what eventually became the European Union. By the early twenty-first century however in a hugely transformed Europe this era had patently come to an end. This comprehensive history shows how France coupled the pursuit of power and the furtherance of European integration over a sixty-year period from the close of the Second World War to the hesitation caused by the French electorate's referendum rejection of the European Union's constitutional treaty in 2005.</p>