CHARLES DE GAULLE, (1890-1970), president of France, who was the leader
of the Free French movement during WORLD WAR II and the chief architect
of the Fifth Republic.
Charles Andre Joseph Marie de Gaulle was born in Lille, France, on Nov.
22, 1890, the son of a teacher of philosophy and literature at a Jesuit
college. From early childhood he took a keen interest in reading.
Fascinated by history, he formed an almost mystical conception of
service to France.
De Gaulle graduated from the Ecole Militaire of Saint-Cyr in 1912 and
joined an infantry regiment. In World War I he was wounded and captured
at Douaumont in the Battle of Verdun in March 1916. As a war prisoner,
he wrote his first book, published in 1924, La discorde chez l'ennemi.
After the armistice he served on the staff of Gen. Maxime Weygand's
military mission to Poland and then taught military history at
Saint-Cyr. He served on Marshal Henri Philippe PETAIN's staff, then
with the French army occupying the Rhineland, and later in Lebanon.
In the 1930's de Gaulle wrote various books and articles on military
subjects that marked him as a gifted writer and an imaginative thinker.
In 1931 he published Le fil de l'epee (Eng. tr., The Edge of the Sword,
1960), an analysis of military and political leadership. He also
published Vers l'armee de metier (1934; Eng. tr., The Army of the
Future, 1941) and La France et son armee (1938; Eng. tr., France and
Her Army, 1945). He urged the creation of a mechanized army with
special armored divisions manned by a corps of professional specialist
soldiers. Armored mobility and air power, he argued, would provide
better defenses than fixed fortifications such as the Maginot Line. His
theories were rejected by the military and by left-wing leaders who saw
professional armies as a potentially dangerous political weapon.
Free French Leader
At the outbreak of World War II, de Gaulle was a colonel commanding a
tank regiment in Alsace. In May 1940, at the time of the German
offensive, he was promoted to brigadier general and placed in charge of
the hastily formed 4th Armored Division, which helped check the German
advances under desperate conditions. On June 6, 1940, Premier Paul
Reynaud, who for many years had championed de Gaulle's ideas in the
Chamber of Deputies, appointed him undersecretary of state for war. De
Gaulle was one of the few in the cabinet to resist surrender and to
propose that the government withdraw if necessary to North Africa to
continue the struggle. When Marshal Petain, who was committed to an
armistice with the Germans, became premier, de Gaulle left for London.
On June 18 he broadcast the first of his appeals to his compatriots to
continue the struggle.
He soon became the very symbol of the entire Resistance, even though
the exiled armed forces at his disposal were few in number. He
impressed upon British Prime Minister Winston CHURCHILL the
significance of the movement but did not succeed in impressing the
highly skeptical leaders in Washington--including President Franklin D.
ROOSEVELT, who thought of him as a potential dictator and as an
obstacle to U. S. relations with the Vichy regime. In July 1940 a
French court martial sentenced de Gaulle to death for treason.
From 1942 on, de Gaulle's Free (or Fighting) French movement gained in
power and influence, winning over the French colonies in West Africa,
and establishing close ties with the underground Resistance movement in
France itself. De Gaulle reiterated his intention to allow the French
people to decide their political destiny after liberation and won the
backing of many of the former republican political leaders.
In November 1942, when American and British expeditionary forces landed
in North Africa, they persuaded Adm. Jean Francois Darlan, head of the
Vichy armed forces and Marshal Petain's representative in North Africa,
to order a cease-fire, in return for which Darlan was named high
commissioner for French North Africa. De Gaulle and many segments of
the British and American press denounced the step. After Darlan's
assassination a month later, the Allies named Gen. Henri Giraud as high
commissioner. Seeing his opportunity, de Gaulle moved his headquarters
to Algiers in May 1943. He organized the French Committee of National
Liberation, with himself and General Giraud as cochairmen, and soon
eased out the less adroit Giraud.
By 1944, de Gaulle was widely recognized as political leader of the
Resistance movement. In June 1944 he transformed the Committee of
National Liberation into a provisional government of the French
republic. Although he was not permitted to land on D-Day, he arrived on
French soil a week later on June 14 and on August 25 he entered Paris
in triumph.
Head of the Provisional Government
After the war, de Gaulle was unanimously elected president of the
provisional government in October 1945. Representing the newly restored
political parties and the Resistance groups, his provisional government
carried out the spirit of the Resistance programs, instituting a number
of far-reaching economic reforms, including the nationalization of
various industries and the inauguration of plans for economic
modernization. The country could not agree on a new constitution,
however, and two successive constituent assemblies had to be elected.
While the constitution was still being debated, President de Gaulle
grew impatient with the role played by the political parties and with
the subordination of the executive branch to the legislature. He had
already let it be known that he favored a constitution that would
provide for a strong executive and a stable government. In January 1946
he resigned precipitously.
Retirement and Recall
De Gaulle disapproved of the constitution of the Fourth Republic,
adopted in October 1946, and he returned to his country home at
Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises to write his war memoirs. He made a renewed
political effort in 1947 by organizing the Rassemblement du Peuple
Francais (Rally of the French People), a national coalition "above
parties, which the left viewed as an authoritarian threat to democratic
institutions. The organization had little success, and de Gaulle again
withdrew from politics in May 1953 to complete the three volumes of his
brilliant war memoirs: L'appel (1954; Eng. tr., The Call to Honor,
1955), L'unite (1956; Eng. tr., Unity, 1959), and Le salut (1959; Eng.
tr., Salvation, 1960).
Meanwhile the Fourth Republic, despite economic prosperity, met
military disaster in Indochina in 1954 and then faced an insoluble
colonial war in Algeria, which began that same year. In the grave
crisis that broke out in the spring of 1958, army leaders and European
settlers in Algeria staged a mass demonstration in Algiers on May 13,
directed against any attempt in Paris to form a government that would
make concessions to the Algerian nationalists. Civil war threatened in
the continuing crisis, and political leaders of various persuasions
turned to de Gaulle as the one person who could avert disaster. On June
1, 1958, the National Assembly named de Gaulle premier and granted him
wide emergency powers, including the right to prepare a new
constitution to be submitted to a popular referendum. In September 1958
the new constitution, providing for a presidential system, was
overwhelmingly adopted by 83% of the electorate.
President of the Fifth Republic
Legislative elections in November 1958 assured a majority for the new
Gaullist party (the Union for the New Republic) and other supporters of
de Gaulle, and in December 1958 he was elected president of the Fifth
Republic by a 78% vote of the electoral college. He was inaugurated in
January 1959. Michel Debre became the first premier of the Fifth
Republic, but the President retained the decisive voice in all matters
involving foreign affairs, national defense, and even key domestic
policies. The President also had the power under the constitution to
rule by decree in the event of emergency and to dissolve the
legislature and hold new elections.
The new government adopted important financial and economic measures to
combat inflation and to protect the industrial expansion already under
way. It devalued the franc and (for psychological reasons) issued a new
franc worth 100 old francs. Modernization plans and state investment in
key sectors of the economy were continued. By the 1960s the French
economy was experiencing unprecedented rates of growth and remarkable
stability.
In international affairs President de Gaulle asserted France's
independence of all outside control, calling for policies that would
make France and Europe independent of the two superpowers, the United
States and the USSR. He refused to admit Britain into his European
scheme and blocked Britain's effort to join the European Economic
Community (Common Market). In 1960, France showed its strength by
successfully exploding its first atomic bomb.
Algerian Settlement
The Algerian War continued after 1958. Abandoning the hope of
reconciling Algeria to integration with France, de Gaulle unexpectedly
began to speak of independence. The groups that had helped bring him to
power with the thought that his views on French grandeur would
guarantee the retention of Algeria turned against him in open revolt,
and in February 1960 and in April 1961 he had to use emergency powers
to put down risings by the European settlers and the military in
Algeria. The Secret Army Organization (OAS) resorted to terrorism in
Paris and to attempts on his life.
In 1962, de Gaulle arranged a cease-fire with the Algerian National
Liberation Front, and Algerian independence was approved in a popular
referendum in France in April. It was widely conceded even by critics
hostile to de Gaulle that he had succeeded in ending a crisis that no
other French political leader had been able to resolve. By the early
1960's all other French colonies in Africa had also been granted
independence.
Fluctuations in Popularity
In September 1962, de Gaulle's strong-minded domestic rule alienated
many in parliament. He proposed that the constitution be amended to
permit election of the president of the republic by direct popular
vote. However, instead of submitting the proposed amendment to the
National Assembly first, as the constitution provided, he insisted on
putting it directly to the people in a referendum. When the Assembly
passed a motion of censure, de Gaulle promptly dissolved it and held
new elections. The referendum supported the de Gaulle amendment. The
elections in November also resulted in increased strength for the
Gaullists. In April 1962, after the Algerian settlement, Michel Debre
submitted his resignation as premier and was replaced by Georges
Pompidou.
In 1965, de Gaulle was reelected president for a second 7-year term,
and he was inaugurated in January 1966, but with a marked decline in
prestige. During the election campaign the hitherto muted criticism of
his administration burst forth. Despite economic and technological
growth, political stability, and a strong foreign policy, resentment
was expressed at de Gaulle's excessive nationalism and at the failure
of the government to cope with inflation and other economic problems.
In the election de Gaulle received only a 44.6% plurality, and a runoff
was necessary. He was then elected by a 55% vote.
In the legislative elections of March 1967 the Gaullist coalition won
only a narrow victory despite de Gaulle's personal appeal. Political
protests and massive economic strikes began, including demonstrations
by farmers, and the government had to seek special powers to deal with
the slowdown of the economy. Meanwhile the President continued his
assertive foreign policy, forcing NATO forces to leave French soil,
continuing to oppose British entry into the Common Market, condemning
the American war in Vietnam, stirring up extremist separatist
sentiments in Quebec, and tending to support the Arabs in their war
with Israel.
Triumph in Adversity--1968
In the spring of 1968 the Gaullist regime faced a stern test. Massive
student demonstrations and street fighting in Paris, in which the
students occupied the Sorbonne for weeks, sparked a series of gigantic
labor strikes--the greatest strike wave in French history--that
paralyzed the economy. More than 8 million workers were on strike, over
one third of the nation's labor force. The students agitated for reform
of the nation's educational system, expansion of educational
facilities, and a voice in decision making. The workers demanded a more
equitable share in an economy that had been expanding dramatically
since the 1950's but was suffering from severe inflation. De Gaulle at
first planned a series of reforms to placate the students and labor and
to ask backing for his reforms in a referendum. Premier Pompidou, whose
government narrowly survived an attempt to censure it in parliament,
advised against such a referendum and persuaded the President to
dissolve parliament and hold new general elections.
In the election of June 1968, de Gaulle, effectively using the threat
of a Communist takeover and gaining the support of many Frenchmen who
were frightened by the student excesses, won a landslide victory for
his regime. The Gaullist party, the Union for the New Republic, won 358
of the 487 seats, the first time in republican history that any party
had won an absolute majority in the legislature. Despite Premier
Pompidou's share in the Gaullist victory, the President startled the
French people by replacing him with Maurice Couve de Murville in July
1968.
The keynote for the new phase of the Gaullist regime was the building
of a "society of participation. Distinct from both capitalism and
communism, the new society was pledged to give labor and students a
share in the making of decisions that affected their lives and to
assure workingmen a share in the profits of industry.
In 1969, de Gaulle submitted proposed constitutional reforms, which
would have transformed the Senate into an advisory body and given
extended powers to regional councils. When his proposals were defeated,
de Gaulle resigned the presidency on April 28 and retired to his home
in Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises. There he worked on his memoirs, a
legendary figure in his own time, until his death on Nov. 9, 1970.
Joel Colton
Duke University
<>"Belgium is just a country invented by the British to annoy the
French." - Charles de Gaulle <>"What can you do with a man who looks like a female llama
surprised when bathing?" - Winston Churchill on Charles de Gaulle
"China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese." - Charles de Gaulle
"Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is
made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life."
- Charles de Gaulle
"For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her."
- Charles de Gaulle
"France cannot be France without greatness." - Charles de Gaulle
"How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of
cheese?" - Charles de Gaulle
"I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she
will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French
from being French." - Charles de Gaulle
"I was France." - Charles
de Gaulle
"Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised
to be taken at his word." - Charles de
Gaulle
"The better I get to know men, the more I find
myself loving dogs." - Charles de Gaulle
"The graveyards are full of indispensable men."
- Charles de Gaulle
"When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself." - Charles de Gaulle
"You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities
they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination." - Charles de Gaulle
