Following the humiliation of the Second World War and the Occupation, French authorities were faced with the challenge of rebuilding French national pride and identity while struggling to regain the nation’s position as a world power. In view of the important role played by the colonies in helping to maintain French identity and integrity throughout the war years, De Gaulle, and subsequently the fourth Republic, endeavoured to use these over-seas territories for political leverage as a symbol of France’s strength. However, despite continuous attempts made by successive governments to cling tenaciously to the colonies, as the spirit of the French Resistance spread throughout the colonies and President Eisenhower proclaimed the right of all nations to self-determination, France met with almost constant opposition to its authority from colonial nationalists and responded with much military repression. In consequence, the post-war colonial question was transformed into a major issue of public debate.

To the forefront of this debate was the figure of the French intellectual. Although the role of the intellectual as a moral guardian had, since the Dreyfus Affair, traditionally caused much polemic in France, it cannot be denied that the post-war purging of the intellectuals would seem to have catapulted the question of intellectual engagement to the forefront of French public debate once more. Consequently, the post-war years in France were marked by various cycles of intellectual engagement in political affairs. Through the examination of intellectual discourse of engagement provoked by pivotal moments in this period of colonial contestation, it may be possible to gauge the influence of such discourse on constructions of French national identity and present-day mentalités in France. Yet, as the fall of French colonialism coincided with and was greatly influenced by the manifestation of a new world order constituting two great super-powers: the U.S.A and the Soviet Union, it is imperative that French ‘decolonisation’ and resulting intellectual discourse be examined within the broader context of the Cold War.

This paper will thus seek to present and examine some of the intellectual discourse inspired by America’s attitude toward and influence upon the process known as ‘French decolonisation’. Through the analysis of articles written by personalities such as Camus in Combat and Sartre in Le Figaro or Les Temps Modernes, we shall attempt to trace the evolution of their discourse vis-à-vis Franco-American relations and the Rise of American Hegemony which was contrasted by the fall of the French colonial empire. More specifically, the paper will outline how this discourse of engagement which came about as a result of Franco-American relations and most particularly tensions (e.g.1956 Suez Crisis, Nasser and Pan-Arabism) during the post-war years is representative of the enduring legacies of French thinkers active during the Cold War period and can thus, in light of the 2003 war in Iraq, help illuminate the state of Franco-American relations amid today’s global “war on terrorism”.