Abstract The article explores French foreign policy in the Balkans during the Fifth Republic (1958–2024) through the prism of presidential bilateral visits. Drawing on an original dataset comprising thirty-eight presidential bilateral visits and fifty-eight official speeches delivered during these occasions, the article demonstrates how such high-level encounters have mirrored the evolution of France’s strategic interests in a geopolitically sensitive region. By combining qualitative content analysis of presidential speeches with archival research and historical contextualization, the article demonstrates how French presidents have used visits not only to reaffirm alliances symbolically but also to recalibrate France’s regional influence. The analysis identifies clear patterns: while France’s engagement with the Balkans has fluctuated over time, key countries such as Greece and Romania consistently received more attention, reflecting their cultural proximity and longstanding economic and security bilateral ties. The study also shows that visits often align with major geopolitical developments, such as post-conflict stabilization, EU enlargement, or the war in Ukraine.
Kočí et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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