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With the upcoming French presidency of the European Union in the second half of 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy declared that he wanted to enhance the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). Abandoned and ignored after the failure of the European Defense Community in 1954, the project of a European defense took shape after the Cold War in the ??90s. In French geopolitical representations, the ESDP is a preliminary step before a future European defense, an instrument for a new center of power in a multipolar world. This French vision of a European defense is combined with the foreign and defense policy of France's NATO allies and EU partners in the Euro-Atlantic area, but is not without competition and opposition. Confronted with risks and threats to their security environment, the overwhelming majority rely on the US and NATO. The geopolitical balance of power and the transformation of the EU in a vast pan-European commonwealth is not mutually exclusive with the enhancement of the ESDP but the creation of a European defense is more improbable.