The article, based on documents from the archives of the French Foreign Ministry, most of which have not been put into academic circulation either in Russian or foreign historiography, examines the evolution of the views of French diplomats and experts on Eastern European economic integration within the framework of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and its influence on Gaullist foreign policy in the mid-1960s. The failure of the attempt to comprehensively reform the CMEA in 1962–1963 led to the abandonment of plans for the development of supranational structures and slowed down the deepening of integration in Eastern Europe. Similar trends occurred in the process of Western European integration, when in the mid-1960s. an «empty chair crisis» occurred. One of the options for overcoming the integration impasse for both associations was mutual recognition of the CMEA and the EEC and the development of institutional cooperation. France feared that such trends would further strengthen the position of Germany in Eastern Europe and consistently opposed the institutionalization of cooperation between East and West, relying on bilateral contacts with the countries of the socialist camp. This was especially evident in cooperation with the USSR and Romania, becoming one of the symbols of détente in international tension.
Gaullism; France; CMEA; integration; Fifth Republic.