One of the major poliitcal figures of the period covered in this module (1945-75) is Charles de Gaulle. He was a colussus, dominating many aspects of political life and intervening, in a decisive manner, in a key moments in France's postwar history. His beliefs, about France's place in the world, about the the appropriate nature of state authority form a political ideology that is known as le gaullisme and which continues to exert an influence on French political life today.
Charles, André, Joseph, Marie de Gaulle was born on the 22 November 1890 and died in November 1970. He Served with distinction in the First World War, despite spending the final two years as a POW. In spite of his reputation as an arrogant maverick, by 1940, he had gained promotion to the rank of general. Unlike most other generals who accepted the terms of the armistice with Nazi Germany, de Gaulle fled to London where, on the 18th June he made his famous speech to the French calling upon them to continue to struggle against Nazi Germany. This solitary act of rebellion is the founding moment of the `Gaullist myth', the belief that de Gaulle embodied the true spirit and glory of France.
To many after the war, he remained assciated with this moment and was known as l'homme de juin or celui qui a dit non. His call to resistance allowed France to recover some form of dignity after the humiliation of military defeat, poliitcal collapse and collaboration with Nazi occupation. When de Gaulle entered Paris in August 1944 at the head of an army of liberation he cemented his reputation as the saviour of France.
For 16 months de Gaulle was the head of a coalition government formed of Socialists, Communists and Christian Democrats. In 1946 he resigned as head of government and spent the next 12 years in a sort of political exile during which time he wrote his memoires. It would take another war - this time in Algeria - to bring him back to power on his own terms in 1958. Although de Gaulle's relationship with the French had been based on war, for the next ten years he led a country at peace that grew in confidence and prosperity.
A defining characteristic of de Gaulle's vision for France, and, indeed, of Gaullism, was the preoccupation with returning France to its proper rank as a major world power within the international hierarchy of nations - rentrer dans le rang. De Gaulle spoke passionately of France's destiny and was determined to restore France to her rightful place in the world.
De Gaulle's foreign policy was one characterized by a ruthless defence of French, especially metropolitan French, interests. His actions over Algeria were based partly on the belief that the war was one that France could not win. However, he also saw a French economy seriously weakened by war and that could never fulfill its historical destiny. De Gaulle ended 132 years of French rule in Algeria for the purposes of a greater ambition.
Restoring its status as a global power meant, of course, being a major European power. De Gaulle had a grand design for the future of France at the centre of a Europe that would challenge the military, political, cultural and economic dominance of super-powers like the USA and the USSR.
De Gaulle turned to France's old enemy, West Germany, and forged a close relationship with Chancelor Audenauer. The Germans had thought that de Gaulle was an old military man more likely to be hostile to any kind of rapprochement with West Germany. They couldn't be more wrong as de Gaulle saw a Franco-German partneship as the key to crating a European challenge to the power of the USA and the USSR. When de Gaulle visited West Germany he was warmly greeted by the public, happy to see the two enemies reconciled in friendship.
De Gaulle had a vision of a Europe that would rival the great superpowers - une troisieme suerpuissance. However, his overpowering belief in the integrity of the nation state also meant that he was antagonistic to any supranational organisations that would undermine sovereignty. His vision of Europe then, was of une Europe des États or une Europe des patries working together to their mutual benefit.
This partly explains de Gaulle's suspicion of the UK and his veto of the UK's attempts (1963 and 1966-7) to join the Common Market after years of careful preparation. De Gaulle felt that the UK would not work towards a greater European good and une Europe européenne and that the British would inevitably represent the interests of the USA and the Commonwealth. The UK's Atlantic biais would pull against the interests of an independent Europe. The fear of and hostility to perceived US hegemony was very much a central part of de Gaulle's thinking.
A good example of this took place in 1965 when de Gaulle decided to abandon the dollar as the key unit of financial exchange and return to the pre-war gold standard. International financial exchanges should, he argued, be based on gold and not on any single currency reflecting the economic strengths of a single nation.
It was logical, in the context of de Gaulle's desire for France to return
to its former state of global greatness and his antagonism to US hegemony,
that de Gaulle would pay special attention to the development of the
military and to the creation of an independant nuclear capacity. De
Gaulle's pessimistic vision of the world in which individual nations were
engaged in a constant struggle with others to protect their own interests
reinforced this conviction. His pessimism event led to him beleiving in
the distinct possibility that there would be a third World War.
As early as October 1945,just two months after Hiroshima, de Gaulle,
as President of France's provisional government, set up the Commissariat
à l'Énergie atomique (CEA), with a view to developing France's nuclear
potential. At first, it concentrate on the civilian uses of nuclear
energy but by 1954 secret military tests had begun. When de Gaulle
returned to power in 1958 he made the creation of a French nuclear
deterrent «une priorité absolue» and ambitions programmes to build
French nuclear bombers and submarines were launched. France's first
nuclear test took place in the Sahara desert in February 1960. In May 1961
de Gaulle's negotiations with the FLN regarding independance
for Algeria brought down over the issue of France's nuclear test site
in the Sahara desert. Later in the 1960s France's nuclear tests took place
in Polynesia, much to the annoyance of the local population and to
international opinion.
In the autumn of 1966 de Gaulle demanded that Nato to remove its army from
France. French military was command taken out of NATO and returned to
national command. Inevitably, this created chaos in NATO with the
evacuation of dozens of military sites. De Gaulle was committed to an
independent France in an independent Europe and would not countenance
American military leadership.
It was logical given de Gaulle's vision for France as a major world power
that he thought it appropriate for France to take a leading role in world
affairs, particlarly those parts of the world that were once subject to
French influence. At the height of America's war in Vietnam, he defended
right of the Vietnamese to self-determination. In September 1966, he
visited Vietnam where he was warmly welcomed. He frequently spoke out
against US war there and for the peoples of the Third World. The Left, of
course, approved of his policies.
In 1967 he visited Quebec where again he spoke out against the
English-speaking world and made his famous speech which concluded with the
words «Vive le Québec libre!». De Gaulle's frequent foreign visits and his
words of support won France much prestige internationally.
By late 1960s his popularity was on the wane. He had been in power for ten
years and his direct line to the French people was beginning to weaken.
Many in France viewed him as an anachronism, a throwback to a France they
no longer believed in, or indeed, no longer recognized. To the generation
born after the war, the ideals that de Gaulle embodied no longer seemed
relevant. French cultural traditions had been unsettled throughout the
1960s by a global youth culture. In the 1967 elections, the Gaullists only
narrowly won and in March 1968 Le Monde famously wrote that `La
France s'ennuie'. This boredom, or yearning for another kind of France was
to lead to de Gaulle's retirement from political life and will be the
subject of our next lecture.
Le site Charles de Gaulle
is an excellent resource with a wealth of materials about de Gaulle,
produced by the Fondation et Institut Charles de Gaulle that is well worth
visiting, in spite of its obvious biais. It contains photographs, a
chronology, speeches and useful summaries of key moments in his career.
More traditional resources are found below:
Foreign Policy
La France s'ennuie
Further Reading
Concept & Text: Tony McNeill
The University of Sunderland
Last Update 14-Nov-99