In the past few months the attitudes of France toward Western European unity have been undergoing a perceptible change. Initiative, imagination, and drive have given way to hesitancy, skepticism, and even withdrawal. The change was placed in dramatic focus by the coincidence of the formal opening of the coal and steel pool, which owes its existence in large part to the work of the two Frenchmen, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, at the very time the newly created Mayer government was communicating to other interested states its reservations regarding the European Defense Community Treaty, for which French effort is also in large part responsible.