In the early 1950s Franco-German relations developed in a rapid and rather interesting fashion. One extremely important and often overlooked event was when the French agreed in 1954 to a referendum in the Saarland, which had been separated from the Federal Republic and turned into something of an independent country. France certainly hoped that the Saar would forever remain outside the German state. But Pierre Mendès-France, who was Premier of France at the time, let this referendum happen. The results were entirely unambiguous. They were more than 2 to 1 in favor of becoming a part of Germany. The great question was, How would France react?

France reacted by respecting the will of the people of the Saar. I think this was the critical point in the development of confidence between France and Germany, and the most visible example of the emergence of a new partnership in Europe. But France and Germany had different agendas. Germany, above all, wanted to become a part of the community of nations, and France above all wanted to control Germany's re-emergence. One of the ways for France to do this was through the Coal and Steel Community, which started work in 1952, and came to be the core of what we still know as the European Union.