Polish–French relations are relations between the nations of Poland and France, which date back several centuries.
Despite a number of cultural similarities, such as being prominent old medieval European kingdoms, belonging to Western civilization and sharing a common Roman Catholic religion, relations between France and Poland have only become relevant since the Renaissance era. From the 16th century onward, the two countries made more frequent attempts at alliances and political cooperation, and the French and Polish ruling houses intermarried several times. Relations gained greater significance during the reign of Napoleon I, when Poles were allies of Napoleon with the hope of resurrecting their recently occupied homeland, which, however, was not achieved. The French government sympathized with Polish rebels in 1830 and 1863 but did not intervene. At that time a large Polish community settled in France.
Following the rebirth of independent Poland after World War I, Poland and France were allies during the interwar period and World War II. France declared war on Nazi Germany when it invaded Poland in 1939, but for the most part France did not engage in military action, thus it was accused of failing to act accordingly. France eventually also fell to the Germans the next year, and the Poles took part in the liberation of France in 1944. The two countries were on opposite sides during the Cold War. Although the Polish Army has never fought against France, repeated accusations of French betrayal has influenced the relations between the two nations. It contributed to a cold attitude from Poland to France, despite their alliance since the fall of communism in Poland in 1989.
Tomb effigy of heart of King John II Casimir at Abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris
Charles-Paris d'Orléans; François Louis, prince of Conti; Henri Jules, prince of Condé; and Louis, prince of Condé were candidates for the Polish throne.
During the anti-Russian Confederation of Bar the French Court Royal supported the Polish confederates by sending French officers under Charles François Dumouriez.
In the late 18th century both Poland and France entered a revolutionary period, with the French Revolution being a major influence on the reforms of the Great Sejm in Poland. There was, however, never any official Polish–French alliance; in fact France was content to deflect some of its troubles by not allying itself with Poland, as Poland's neighbors, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, expecting a formation of such an alliance, and seeing Polish reforms as a sign of Jacobinite influence, were busy carrying out the partitions of Poland and had less resources to spare to deal with events in France.
Napoleon's creation of the Duchy of Warsaw gave every appearance of resurrecting the Polish nation from the political grave to which it had been consigned in the partitions that ended in 1795.[2] Russia defeated Napoleon and made the 'independence' no more meaningful than that of Congress Poland, which emerged from the Vienna settlement. However, the Duchy represented the hope of true independence, whereas Congress Poland was always in Russia's shadow.
The other lasting significance of Napoleon's Grand Duchy is that it cast off old feudal Poland to some degree under the rule of the partitioning powers. Serfdom was abolished and a modern legal code based on the French model was introduced.[citation needed] Critical was the contribution the Napoleonic period made towards the creation of a national legend or myth, which was to sustain and comfort Poles down the decades that followed. Amongst other things, it contributed to a belief that the rest of Europe had an abiding interest in the fate of Poland, arising from Bonaparte's support in 1797 for the formation of Polish Legions, recruited from amongst émigrés and other exiles living in Italy.[citation needed] The Polish national anthem, "Dąbrowski's Mazurka", is a celebration of the legion's commander, Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, and Napoleon is only mentioned in passing. Napoleon's treatment of these soldiers was cynical in the extreme.[according to whom?] After the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801, they were sent to the West Indies to suppress the slave revolt in the French colony Saint-Domingue, or modern Haiti.[citation needed]
Napoleon continued to use Poles where it suited him best. Of the fresh forces raised after the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, some 10,000 were sent to fight against the Spanish and the British in the Peninsular War. However, the Poles were most enthusiastic about the 1812 war against Russia-which Napoleon called the Second Polish War-as they formed by far the largest foreign contingent of the Grand Army.[citation needed] There is no precise information on what form the peace would have taken if Napoleon had won his war against Alexander, but many Poles held to the belief that it would, at the very least, have led to a fully restored Poland, including Lithuania; a return, in other words, to the situation prior to the first partition in 1772. The whole experience of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw is one of Polish confidence in Napoleon's promise of a better future, though there is really nothing that proves he would have fulfilled these expectations.[according to whom?]
Polish national determination did impact Czar Alexander I, as he accepted that there could be no return to the position prevailing in 1795, when Poland had been extinguished. On his insistence, lands that had fallen to Prussia on the Third Partition, including the city of Warsaw, became part of his new 'Polish State', a satellite state that had a high degree of political latitude and one that preserved the Napoleonic code. Alexander may have hoped to transfer some of the fierce loyalty the Poles had formerly shown towards his great rival towards himself; but he merely perpetuated a myth. The hope of a liberal Poland, of Napoleon's Poland was kept alive, until it was all but destroyed in the uprising of 1830–1831.[citation needed] Thereafter, most of those who went into exile sought refuge in France, the home of the Napoleon myth, which gave it fresh life. In 1834, from his Paris exile, Adam Mickiewicz wrote his epic poem, Pan Tadeusz, which celebrates Napoleon's entry into Lithuania in 1812 thus; All sure of victory, cry with tears in eyes/God is with Napoleon, and Napoleon is with us!
Although the legend declined over the years, especially as Napoleon III offered no support to the Polish rising of 1863, it did not altogether die.[citation needed] It received fresh encouragement in 1918, as France was the only western power that offered unqualified support to the newly independent Poland. May 5, 1921, the hundredth anniversary of Napoleon's death, was formally marked by commemorations across the new nation. And he lives, and will continue to live, in the national anthem.[citation needed]
The Great Emigration was an emigration of political elites from partitioned Poland from 1831 to 1870, particularly after the November and January uprisings. Since the end of the 18th century, people who carried out their activities outside the country as emigres played a major role in Polish political life. Because of this emigration of political elites, much of the political and ideological activity of the Polish intelligentsia during the 18th and 19th centuries was done outside of the lands of partitioned Poland. Most of those political émigrés were based in France, seen by the Poles - freshly influenced by Napoleon - as the bastion of liberty in Europe.[3]
During the Cold War, Polish–French relations were poor, due to both countries being on the opposite sides of the Cold War. However France was - again - a site of a thriving Polish emigrant community (see Kultura and Jerzy Giedroyc). Other prominent members of the Polish community in France of that period have included Rene Goscinny.
Polish-French relations have improved after the fall of communism. Poland, France and Germany are part of the Weimar Triangle which was created in 1991 to strengthen cooperation between the three countries.[11]
France, as a founding member of the European Community, European Union, and NATO, as well as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and nuclear power, is one of Poland's principal political, economic, cultural, scientific and technological partners.
The year 2004 marked a breakthrough in Polish-French relations. After a period of tension caused by different approaches to the Iraq crisis and the European Constitution negotiations, relations improved. After the accession of Poland to the European Union on May 1, 2004, meetings of the heads of state from both countries have been organized yearly.
Poland and France have held intergovernmental consultations on several occasions.[13][14] The last such summit took place on 2015 in Paris with President François Hollande and Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz.
In August 2022, Poland sent 146 firefighters and 49 vehicles to France, the largest such group from a foreign country to help extinguish the 2022 wildfires in France.[15]
Resident diplomatic missions
France has an embassy in Warsaw and a consulate-general in Kraków.[16]
Poland has an embassy in Paris and a consulate-general in Lyon.[17]
^Szustakowski, January (2019). "Jak uratowano skarb narodu". Polska Zbrojna (in Polish). Wojskowy Instytut Wydawniczy. pp. 6–7.
^Wituska, Krystyna (2006). Tomaszewski, Irene (ed.). Inside a Gestapo Prison: The Letters of Krystyna Wituska, 1942–1944. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p. xxi.
^Jan Karski,The Great Powers & Poland, 1919-1945: from Versailles to Yalta (UP of America, 1985).
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External links
(in French)Echanges franco-polonais - Polish–French relations described on the pages of the Polish Embassy in France