De Gaulle.
In 1959, in the midst of the (old) Cold War, the French president Charles de Gaulle gave a speech in which he spoke of his vision of Europe, stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals.
[1] This vision of Europe included Russia. It was in clear conflict with the so-called Atlanticist vision, which was grounded in Europe (without Russia) institutionally tied to the U.S. and Canada.
The Atlanticist vision had its military arm, NATO, and its intelligence arm, the CIA and the MI-6. This was no secret to de Gaulle and he acted accordingly.
He took France out of NATO, while, at the same time, trying to emancipate the French intelligence agencies from the U.S. tutelage. He was partially successful, but the French society paid dearly for that success. In the early 1960s, it was devastated by the Algerian war for independence and in the late 1960s, especially in 1968, it was repeatedly wrecked by strikes, revolts, and acts of terrorism.
With de Gaulle's exit from politics, considering that there were no other politicians of his stature, France began a slow but sure return to the Atlanticist orbit.
The last act of diplomatic rebellion against the Atlanticist vision was the president Jacques Chirac's decision not to participate in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
[2] France was thus not a part of George W. Bush's imperial "coalition of the willing." However, already the next French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, brought France back into NATO and then engineered NATO intervention and destruction of Libya. As for Chirac, he soon received a payback for his anti-Atlanticist efforts. He was investigated for corruption and almost ended up spending his political retirement in jail.
[3]
Comment: The Western sanctions and war have destabilized every sector of Syria's economy, transforming a once self-sufficient country into an aid-dependent nation. Russia's long-term strategy in Syria is to extinguish the terrorist threat and rebuild the country from the ashes.
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