Shocker:
France's government proposed forming a union with Britain in 1956 and also discussed joining the Commonwealth, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported Monday. Citing documents in the National Archives, the BBC said Prime Minister Guy Mollet of France had discussed the possibility of a merger of the countries with Prime Minister Anthony Eden. That discussion came on Sept. 10, 1956, when Mollet visited London, but Eden rejected the idea, the BBC said.
I'm not going to venture into the realm of alternative history, but I would wager that France would probably be better off today had this actually occurred. Couldn't be much worse.