France and the Polish October of 1956
France and the Polish October of 1956

Summary/Abstract: It is impossible to understand the impact of the Polish October of 1956 on Franco-Polish relations without looking at what happened in this sphere during an earlier period. Only then can one fully understand what impact Gomu³ka.s return to power and the political changes that he initiated had on Warsaw.s relations with Paris. At the end of the 1940.s and the beginning of 1950.s, tensions in Franco-Polish relations were probably greater than they had been at any other time in the 20th century. The conflict between the two countries reached its peak upon the arrest of several French citizens on spying charges in Poland: Yvonne Bassaler, secretary in the French consulate in Wroc³aw in March, 1949; Étienne Decaux, a scholar of Slavonic studies who was on a stipend in Poland in April of the same year; and André Simon Robineau, an employee of the French consulate in Szczecin and son of the director of the French Institute in Warsaw, in November 1949. The Polish authorities put Bassaler and Robineau on trial, and they received sentences of 9 and 12 years in prison.1 Over the next few years, Polish relations with France were marked by a hostility which manifested itself, among other ways, in a reduction of cultural, scientific, and economic ties, mutual expulsions of citizens, and difficulties for the functioning of diplomatic missions.2 In January 1950, the French Institute.s activities in Poland were suspended, and its professors were forced to leave the country.

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