But the Socialists began to change their stripes in the late 1970’s, rallying around the concept of nuclear dissuasion as a guarantee of national independence and beginning to distance themselves from America. Although Mitterrand did stand firm with the US on the stationing of Pershing missiles in Europe in the early 1980’s, which won him respect from President Ronald Reagan, by this point the Gaullist consensus on the fundamentals of French foreign policy had spread across all political groups.