Foreign policy of the François Mitterrand administration maintaining as many options as possible until forced to pursue a particular course. However, once he made a choice he kept his ministers on a tight leash. Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement lost his ministry over his opposition to French participation in the First Gulf War. Initially, Mitterrand, like British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was vary of German reunification, fearing that it would lead to Germany gaining too much power. He was reluctant to take action because Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev warned it would lead to a military coup d'état in the Soviet Union. Mitterrand did speak in favour of
Mitterrand and the far right Italo-Abyssinian War. Mitterrand, in the Elkabach TV interview and also in his memoirs, defended his actions by saying they were typical of many apolitical inexperienced young men from provincial, middle-class, Catholic families at this time, but at best, his behaviour seems to indicate an ambitious young man looking for action and making connections with little discernment and poor insight. At worst, it sits very uncomfortably in the history of a high-profile left-wing politician. Mitterrand has been called "vichysto-resistant", meaning that he was both part of the Vichy regime as a civil servant and an active member of the French resistance