 With the West German agreement to join the European Coal and Steel Community in order to lift the restrictions imposed by the IAR, thus also ensuring French security by perpetuating French access to Ruhr coal, the role of the IAR was taken over by the ECSC.With US permission, as for example given in the Stuttgart speech, France expanded the borders of the Saarland, after the Ruhr Germany's largest remaining source of coal, by adding parts of the Rhineland and thereafter detached it as a protectorate in 1947.The area was integrated into the French economy, and although nominally politically independent its security and foreign policies were decided in Paris, which also maintained a High Commissioner with wide-ranging powers in the protectorate.