Challenge: Make a Franco-British dominated European Union.

If the Franco-British Union happens, it will be as a war time creation, and I suspect that the other occupied European countries will be tempted to get involved in some form - I can certainly see complete military integration.

Honestly though, as soon as the war ends, I think the union would be dissolved, although it would result in a much closer Franco-British alliance with ready made common institions. I made a TL on this a few years back.

I will explore this in greater details in the subsequent chapters of my TL (I know I really need to get it restarted) but what is likely to happen during the war is the fact that if working separately France and Britain would easily fall prey to influence from either the Americans or the Soviets. This coupled with fancy ideas about what postwar Europe should look like, would provide an ideal breeding ground for ideals about a continuing Franco-British Union post-war, among at least some politicians.

Now of course this would lead to tensions since part of the political spectrum of both countries would be opposed to a continuing Union. The resulting Union government would also be a huge mess due to the sheer number of compromises required, but it could be reformed into something workable down the line after a decade or two.

There is actually a fair number of ideals and values on which the Union could be established. A form of "mild imperialism" could be one, with a desire to use the Union as a vehicle through which France and Britain prestige could be maintained and even expanded. Technological progress could be another one, especially if some politicians tie this to the legacy of France and Britain as "inventors of the modern world" and such.
 
Sounds like a plan, the only problem though is that it doesn't affect Germany. They're still going to develop a roaring export market giving them a large income and have a massive guilt complex over WW2 that encourages/forces them to pick up most of the tab for the EEC/EC proto-EU to show that they're good Europeans and not a threat any more. As the the comedy Yes, Minister only half jokingly put it "The Common Market: We went into it to screw the French by splitting them off from the Germans. The French went in to protect their inefficient farmers from commercial competition. The Germans went in to purge themselves of genocide and apply for readmission to the human race." Even if the French are closer to the UK we're still likely to end up with more of a Franco-German-British affair than merely Franco-British one, was going to say Axis but considering the point of the ECSC and EEC probably not appropriate.
 
the obvious PoD here is that 'west Germany' never happens of happens far later

the US, Uk and France retain direct control of their sectors of Germany until much later, which makes France and the UK the dominant nations in Western Europe as the resurgence of the (west) German economy either doesn't happen or is subsumed into the GDPs of the three Allied Powers.
 
Germany is destroyed in a TBO-style nuclear holocaust or the USSR advances to the Rhine.

In the former France is worse off than OTL (longer German occupation + Nazi horrors), in the latter France becomes the Cold War frontline.
 
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