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Charles de Gaulle 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
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
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