This effectively emptied the Treaty of any sense (in Gaullist understanding) and put end to General de Gaulle’s hopes of building the EEC into a counterweight to the US and the USSR.

General de Gaulle’s hopes of building the EEC into a counterweight to the US and the USSR. “The Germans are behaving like pigs. They are putting themselves completely at the Americans’ service. They’re betraying the spirit of the Franco-German Treaty. And they’re betraying Europe.”[11] Later, in 1965, the General told his closest aides behind closed doors: “The Germans had been my greatest hope; they are my greatest disappointment.”