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Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)French president. Born on 22 November 1890, in Lille, to a family of educationalists, he graduated from the Saint-Cyr military academy, was wounded at the battle of Verdun during World War I and acted as military adviser to the Poles during the Russo-Polish War of 1919-21. Returning to France, he rose through the ranks, becoming a general and under-secretary at the Ministry of Defence in 1940. In the same year, as France fell to Hitler's armies, he went to London and proclaimed himself leader of the Free French in opposition to Marshal Philippe Pétain and the Vichy government, which he denounced as collaborators with Germany. In 1943, de Gaulle became head of the French Committee of National Liberation – the French government in exile. His pride, stubbornness and determined belief in his own destiny as saviour of his country made him a potent symbol of resistance, but also resulted in disagreements with Allied leaders such as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, who were unwilling to recognise the Free French as an equal power with Britain and the United States. Nevertheless, on 25 August 1945, de Gaulle entered a liberated Paris at the head of his own troops, and France was given an equal role in the postwar administration of the defeated Germany. In 1947, he founded the Gaullist political movement, but withdrew from public life six years later after his failure to win an electoral majority. Then, during the severe political crisis caused by the Algerian war of independence, he was invited to become prime minister on 29 May 1958. In a referendum in September, de Gaulle's proposal for a seven-year presidency with greater powers was approved, and he was elected president on 21 December. Surviving several assassination attempts by French Algerian fanatics, De Gaulle successfully ended the Algerian war. He tried to unite France by means of patriotic policies, aspiring to leadership in the Common Market (now the European Union) and, for example, supporting the Quebec separatists in 1967. Despite being re-elected president in 1965, his position was shaken by the May 1968 revolts, during which he secretly fled the country and had to be persuaded by the military to return to face the crisis. A year later he resigned. He died on 9 November 1970. |
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