Part I - The findings
Introduction
Before examining the axioms, it is necessary to establish a distinction that its opponents systematically work to obscure: being sovereign does not mean cutting oneself off from the world. We will be met with withdrawal, narrow nationalism, autarky - these objections are smoke screens designed to avoid the real debate. France has practiced international cooperation for centuries without ever confusing it with the loss of sovereignty. Richelieu forged alliances with the German Protestant princes to serve French interests against the Habsburgs. De Gaulle cooperated with NATO while refusing integrated command. In both cases, France freely chose its commitments - it did not undergo them.
Sovereignty consists in retaining complete control over all the key levers of the state - military, currency, borders, trade, energy, health, education, information, justice, and the capacity to legislate freely - and in being able to decide freely on participation in international organizations or commercial exchanges. It implies neither autarky nor isolationism, but the effective exercise of decision-making power over all strategic matters. A sovereign state cooperates freely with other states on specific and circumscribed subjects - it transfers no competence, delegates no key lever, and retains at all times complete control over its decisions. Any cooperation that involves a surrender of competence, even partial, even presented as temporary, is already an infringement on sovereignty - the temporary becomes structural, the partial becomes total. This is precisely the mechanism that has progressively stripped France of its key levers.