In a meeting with Franz von Papen, the German Ambassador to Austria, in November 1937, Bonnet and Chautemps expressed the hope that an understanding might be reached in which France might accept Central and Eastern Europe as Germany's sphere of influence in return for German acceptance of Western Europe as France's sphere of influence. Moreover, Bonnet became the leading spokesman within the French Cabinet for the idea that the French alliance system in Eastern Europe, the so-called "cordon sanitaire", was a net liability that only served to embroil France in conflicts with Germany. Throughout his career, Bonnet was noted as an advocate of "sacred egoism" and that France must do what helped French interests over any other country's. Bonnet regarded himself as a "realist", and his thinking on foreign policy tended to be colored in equal measure by pragmatism and insularity.