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 said of Mitterrand and Bousquet that "they are ghosts who come from the deepest depths of the collaboration." Georges-Marc Benamou quotes Mitterrand as saying of Bousquet, "his career shattered at the age of 35, it was dreadful... Bousquet suffered badly. Imagine the break, the career shot to pieces" which shows Mitterrand felt that Bousquet was undeservedly badly treated. In 1974, Bousquet gave financial help to Mitterrand for his presidential campaign against Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In an interview with Pierre Favier et Michel Martin-Roland, Mitterrand claimed that he was not the only leftwing politician to benefit from Bousquet's money, as Bousquet