As the French continue to pick over their World Cup debacle, which has been treated as a tragedy almost comparable to the fall of France in 1940, they console themselves with the memory of Charles de Gaulle. Never has de Gaulle's reputation stood higher. When he was forced out of power in 1969, he said to an aide: "The French want to get rid of de Gaulle today but you will see the growth of the myth 30 years from now." This prediction has come true. This year, for the 70th anniversary of his famous call to resistance, Nicolas Sarkozy came to London, the Eurostar was repainted for the occasion with de Gaulle's portrait, and French news channels covered the event for the whole day.
The General: Charles De Gaulle and the France He Saved
by Jonathan Fenby
Buy the book
De Gaulle was incontestably a great figure. Thanks to him, France could make some claim to have been on the winning side in the war. Returning to power in 1958, he saved France from a military coup d'état or a civil war over Algeria, and he created a new constitution. But perhaps his greatest achievement was to create "de Gaulle" — that mythical figure of whom he himself talked in the third person.
This contemporary adulation of de Gaulle should not let us forget how hated he was by many sections of French society during his lifetime. Few 20th-century political leaders have been the target of so many assassination attempts. Communists accused de Gaulle of being a fascist, and conservatives accused him of being a tool of the communists. Roosevelt at various times held to both views. Former French settlers from Algeria hated him. The only consistency in the career of Mitterrand was anti-Gaullism. The British have their own particular relationship with him: admiration for the man who embodied resistance to Germany in 1940 but resentment that he blocked British entry to the Common Market. We think he could have shown more gratitude to the country that had made possible – through his BBC speech – his entry into history. But this is to misunderstand de Gaulle, whose view of international relations was summed up by the phrase "States do not have friends: they have only interests." The British also see something a touch absurd about a man whose identification with French history was so total that he could say "I have been saying it for a thousand years" (though he never said, as Roosevelt claimed, that he was Joan of Arc). Perhaps this British ambivalence explains why there have been surprisingly few English biographies of him – which makes Jonathan Fenby's new study most welcome.
The book is pacy and readable. It contains no great revelations and those who know the story of de Gaulle's life will not learn much, but such a great tale deserves retelling and has not been better told in English before.
One striking feature of Fenby's account is to show de Gaulle's human side, which is unfamiliar, because he kept his personal and public lives strictly separate. When the British wanted some publicity shots of him with his wife in 1941, he muttered that Churchill wanted to sell him as if he were soap. No recording of his wife's voice exists, and it would have been quite unthinkable for her to give an interview. Fenby shows that below the carapace he had a great capacity for feeling pain. He writes movingly about de Gaulle's tenderness for his daughter Anne, who suffered from Down's syndrome and died at the age of 20. The de Gaulles never contemplated putting Anne in a home, and during the war the general often found time to play with her. His Catholic faith was very deep and very private – the opposite of his wartime rival Marshall Pétain, who had no religious faith but tried to impose Catholic policies on France.
As for de Gaulle's public career, Fenby gives a fair account of his tempestuous relationship with Churchill. De Gaulle's view was that the bloodiness, suspicion and intransigence he often showed to Churchill – the man to whom he owed everything in 1940 – was necessary precisely because of his total dependence on the British (although this kind of behaviour came naturally to him). It was the only weapon he had. As Fenby writes, one of de Gaulle's own followers remarked that he had to be regularly reminded that Germany was his enemy, not Britain. One might say that the policy worked, as in the end France got a permanent seat on the UN security council and a zone of occupation in Germany. But whether such intransigence was necessary to achieve these aims is an open question. Another concerns de Gaulle's intentions for Algeria when he returned to power in 1958. How quickly did he decide that independence was inevitable? Was he genuinely visionary or was he forced into independence against his original intentions? De Gaulle could be so gnomic that it was often possible to read almost anything into his views. He famously told the Algerian settlers: "I have understood you," without really revealing what he had "understood" – if he knew himself.
No one can solve all these mysteries, but Fenby gives readers the information they need to draw their own conclusions. His level of accuracy is generally high, though it is a pity that the title of his third chapter misquotes de Gaulle's own memoirs: de Gaulle did not call himself a "Petit Lillois à Paris" but a "Petit Lillois de Paris" – a Parisian from a distinguished family who had been born in Lille, as opposed to a provincial boy from Lille who found himself transported to Paris.
Julian Jackson's books include France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 (Oxford).
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Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles-André-Joseph-Marie de Gaulle (22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970), in France commonly referred to as le général de Gaulle, was a French military leader and statesman. During World War II, he reached the rank of Brigade General and then became the leader of the Forces Françaises Libres ("FFL" — the "Free French Forces"). Between 1944 and 1946, following the liberation of France from German occupation, he was head of the French provisional government. Called to form a government in 1958, he inspired a new constitution and was the Fifth Republic's first president, serving from 1958 to 1969.
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Most famous[edit]
All my life I have had a certain idea of France.
Toute ma vie, je me suis fait une certaine idée de la France.
Opening sentence of his Mémoires de guerre.
I have understood you!
Je vous ai compris !
Said before the population of Algiers after they had called upon him to take power, June 4, 1958.
Long live free Quebec!
Vive le Québec libre!
Said in 1967 on the balcony of Montréal City Hall. It caused a diplomatic uproar with Canada and inflamed the Quebec sovereignty movement.
France has no friends, only interests.
Clementine Churchill: "General, you must not hate your friends more than you hate your enemies"
De Gaulle (in English): "France has no friends, only interests." (De Gaulle did not speak specifically of France, but of all nation-states, including Britain. This remark was in line with his saying "Men can have friends, statesmen cannot").
Les hommes peuvent avoir des amis, pas les hommes d'Etat. Interview, December 9 1967.
Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.
Oui, c'est l'Europe, depuis l'Atlantique jusqu'à l'Oural, c'est toute l'Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde.
23 November 1959, Strasbourg. The phrase shown in bold is the most often quoted excerpt. De Gaulle was expressing his vision of Europe's future. Whether this implicitly excluded the United Kingdom is controversial, and rather unlikely in 1959.
Now she is like everyone else.
Maintenant, elle est comme les autres.
Spoken at the funeral of his daughter Anne, who had Down Syndrome, February 1948
France cannot be France without greatness.
World War II[edit]
France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war.
La France a perdu une bataille, mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre.
Poster À tous les Français (To All Frenchmen), August 1940.
À tous les Français was designed and displayed in London to accompany the Appel du 18 juin (Appeal of 18 June) following defeat at the Battle of France. The pair are considered to be the founding texts of the Résistance.
At the root of our civilization, there is the freedom of each person of thought, of belief, of opinion, of work, of leisure.
A la base de notre civilisation, il y a la liberté de chacun dans sa pensée, ses croyances, ses opinions, son travail, ses loisirs.
Speech, November 25 1941.
Let us be firm, pure and faithful; at the end of our sorrow, there is the greatest glory of the world, that of the men who did not give in.
Soyons fermes, purs et fidèles ; au bout de nos peines, il y a la plus grande gloire du monde, celle des hommes qui n'ont pas cédé.
Speech, July 14 1943.
Fifth Republic and other post-WW2[edit]
Supported General Douglas MacArthur during his row with President Harry Truman by saying MacArthur was:
"A foreign military leader whose daring was feared by those who profited by it." De Gaulle said that MacArthur's critics should "pay deserved tribute to the legendary service of a great soldier".
from William Manchester's "American Caesar".
I am a man who belongs to no-one and who belongs to everyone.
Je suis un homme qui n'appartient à personne et qui appartient à tout le monde.
Press conference, May 19 1958
Why do you think that at 67 I would start a career as a dictator ?
Pourquoi voulez-vous qu'à 67 ans je commence une carrière de dictateur ?
Press conference, May 19 1958 (De Gaulle was changing the constitution to make government more efficient, after decades of impotent parliamentary regime, and he mocked journalists who claimed he was establishing a dictatorship).
Politics, when it is an art and a service, not an exploitation, is about acting for an ideal through realities.
La politique, quand elle est un art et un service, non point une exploitation, c'est une action pour un idéal à travers des réalités.
Press conference, June 30 1955
No policy is worth anything outside of reality.
Il n'y a pas de politique qui vaille en dehors des réalités.
Televized speech, June 14 1960
How can you govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?
Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays qui a deux cent quarante-six variétés de fromage?
Les Mots du Général, Ernest Mignon, 1962
I am not ill. But do not worry, one day, I will certainly die.
Je ne vais pas mal. Mais rassurez-vous, un jour, je ne manquerai pas de mourir.
Press conference, February 1965, denying rumours that he secretly had a terminal disease
Of course one can jump up and down yelling Europe ! Europe ! Europe ! But it amounts to nothing and it means nothing.
Bien entendu, on peut sauter sur sa chaise comme un cabri en disant l’Europe ! l’Europe ! l’Europe ! mais cela n’aboutit à rien et cela ne signifie rien.
Interview on a presidential campaign, December 1965 INA archive of the video (De Gaulle meant that he wanted to build a European Union on realities, i.e. the existing nation-states with their respective interests – not on slogans and abstractions)
Long live Montreal, Long live Quebec! Long live Free Quebec!
Vive Montreal; Vive le Québec! Vive le Québec libre!
From a balcony at Montreal City Hall, with particular emphasis on the word 'libre'. The phrase, a slogan used by Quebecers who favoured Quebec sovereignty, and de Gaulle's use of it, was seen by them as lending his tacit support to the movement. The speech sparked a diplomatic incident with Canada's government, and was condemned by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, saying that "Canadians do not need to be liberated."
Men can have friends, statesmen cannot.
Les hommes peuvent avoir des amis, pas les hommes d'Etat.
Interview, December 9 1967.
The future does not belong to men...
L'avenir n'appartient pas aux hommes...
Speech, December 1967
Charles de Gaulle statue
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
Recalled on leaving the presidency, Life, May 9, 1969