‘Doesn’t Paris like the Portuguese spring’? France and the Carnation Revolution

THE 25 APRIL AS SEEN FROM ABROAD ‘Doesn’t Paris like the Portuguese spring’? France and the Carnation Revolution 1 Victor Pereira O n 3 April 1975, Quotidien de Paris published an article entitled: ‘Paris doesn’t like the Portuguese spring’.2 The French newspaper reported the arrest of Captain Cabo Verde, a member of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA), at Roissy airport on 22 March. The Portuguese ambassador in France had to intervene to obtain the release of the Portuguese officer, who had traveled to Paris to take part in the launch of a Caixa Geral de Depósitos branch. Eight hundred thousand Portuguese were living in France at the time and this population was an important issue for the Lisbon authorities. It was vital that emigrants continued to transfer a substantial part of their savings to Portugal, thereby helping to balance the payments at a time when the country’s economic and financial situation was deteriorating. Starting in the fall of 1974, several members of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) toured France, explaining to their compatriots what had happened in Portugal since 25 April 1974 and urging them to support their country by staying in France and continuing to send remittances. However, these public meetings worried the French authorities, who considered that the speeches made by the Portuguese military amounted to ‘Marxist or Maoist propaganda’3 and that the organization of these events violated ‘the rules of neutrality that must be applied to all foreigners in France’.4 On 13 March 1975, two days after António de Spínola’s failed coup attempt, the French Minister of the Interior ordered that all Portuguese officers and soldiers ‘who went to France ABSTRACT F rance was one of the countries that followed with the greatest attention and concern the events that took place in Portugal between 25 April 1974 and the end of 1976. In 1974, there were 800,000 Portuguese living in France and French investment in Portugal had increased significantly in the early 1970s. While the French government initially looked favorably on 25 April and the decolonization process, the French attitude changed significantly after 11 March 1975 and especially during the Hot Summer. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing then advocated for suspending the financial aid that European institutions intended to grant to Portugal. Keywords: Carnation Revolution, democratic transition, decolonization, totalitarianism. RESUMO «Paris não gosta da primavera portuguesa»? A França e a Revolução dos Cravos A França foi um dos países que seguiu com mais atenção e preocupação os eventos que ocorreram em > RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS SPECIAL ISSUE : 2024 [ pp. 036-056 ] https://doi.org/10.23906/ri2024.sia04 to take part in political meetings’ should be ‘sent back to their country of origin’.5 Captain Cabo Verde was arrested a few days later. This incident unveils some of the French authorities’ misgivings about the Portuguese revolutionary process. On the one hand, the French government feared that the events in Portugal might have repercussions on its territory, given that hundreds of thousands of Portuguese lived in France and that the French left and far-left were passionate about a revolution that appeared to be a replication of May–June 1968.6 On the other hand, the French authorities were suspicious of the MFA, fearing that it intended to impose a military dictatorship in Palavras-chave: Revolução dos Cravos, Lisbon, relying in particular on the Portuguese Commutransição democrática, descolonização, totalitarismo. nist Party (PCP). In a European Economic Community (EEC) that at the time included several left-wing governments (including the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom), the France of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, elected President of the Republic on 19 May 1974, after the death of Georges Pompidou, was seemingly the most distrustful country regarding the Portuguese revolution. Giscard d’Estaing’s intellectual and political background did not predispose him to look benignly on a revolution that challenged capitalism and was led by military men who professed admiration for the political experiences of Third World countries. In his memoirs, the few lines he dedicates to the Carnation Revolution show his reluctance: Portugal at the time was an ‘unhappy country under pressure from the Communist Party and the extreme left’.7 This distrust of the French authorities led to a lot of criticism in France, which were aimed at Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who was deemed close to the elites of the Estado Novo. In fact, before 25 April 1974, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, either as Minister of Economy and Finance between 1969 and 1974, or in a private capacity, went to Portugal several times, where, among other activities, he hunted with the President of the Portuguese Republic, Américo Tomás, and took part in a safari in Mozambique. Giscard d’Estaing knew some of the leaders of the large Portuguese economic groups who were accused by the Portuguese authorities of trying to sabotage the revolution. The French President was also seen as close to General Spínola, who had been in exile since 11 March 1975. In September 1975, communist militants demonstrated against General Spínola’s presence in Paris, shouting ‘Spínola, fascist, Giscard, accomplice’. This focus on the figure of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing is partly the result of the presidentialization of foreign policy under the French Fifth Republic. Under this regime, foreign policy is part of the reserved domain (domaine réservé) of the President of the Republic, who has a great deal of autonomy vis-à-vis the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while there is little scrutiny from the legislature.8 Portugal entre o 25 de Abril de 1974 e o fim de 1976. Em 1974, 800 mil portugueses residiam em França e os investimentos franceses em Portugal tinham aumentado substancialmente no início dos anos de 1970. Se o Governo francês vê inicialmente com bons olhos o 25 de Abril e o processo de descolonização, depois do 11 de Março de 1975 e, sobretudo, durante o Verão Quente, a postura francesa muda substancialmente. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing defende então uma suspensão da ajuda financeira que as instituições europeias pretendam dar a Portugal. ‘Doesn’t Paris like the Portuguese spring’? Victor Pereira 037 However, research carried out in various archives allows us to go beyond the anathemas, often motivated by domestic political reasons, and, by following the various actors in French diplomacy, to understand how France reacted to the Portuguese revolutionary process, which caused quite a stir in the French political and intellectual world. The available documentation lets us know that the daily reading of events made by the French ambassador in Lisbon, Bernard Durand, played a fundamental role in the evolution of Portuguese policy in Paris. After warmly welcoming the fall of the dictatorship and the start of the decolonization process, the French authorities grew (...truncated)