De Gaulle understood that only nations are real
31 May 2008
Few may celebrate the half-century since Charles de Gaulle’s triumphs of 1958, says Robin Harris, but this realist genius understood that, in geopolitics, the nation-state was all
The Fifth Republic’s constitution created what de Gaulle himself described as an ‘elective monarchy’. But change is now in the air. Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to shake up France involve not just economic reforms, of which the General, a reformer himself, might approve, but also the demystification of the presidency, of which he certainly would not. And de Gaulle’s intuition of what the French nation will wear looks increasingly correct.
On this side of the Channel, let alone on the other side of the Atlantic, no Gaullist anniversary is likely to draw a crowd. The British, depending on their age group, consider de Gaulle a war-time prima donna, or an obstacle to Europe, or simply the least cool of an uncool political generation. The Americans just rate him as anti-American, which for them is enough. All are right. But all miss the point.
Charles de Gaulle cared about France and only France (not, be it noted, the contemporary French, whose whims he mistrusted); it was the idea, that ‘certain idea’, which mattered. Otherwise, he was cold. Though fond of his family, he was distant to friends, suspicious of allies, manipulative of colleagues, harsh to subordinates. He did not even care for himself. He was without physical fear. After escaping the most nearly successful of 14 assassination attempts, in August 1962, he merely observed to a jittery Pompidou: ‘They shoot like pigs!’ All his passion was reserved for France.
But despite that romantic core, he was in foreign affairs a realist, perhaps the most eloquent exponent and constant practitioner of that much maligned doctrine. Realism involved the speedy completion of decolonisation. It also implied a re-orientation of French military strategy around the nuclear weapon, a policy very reluctantly accepted by other powers. The Force de Frappe allowed (and allows) France to count at the top table, despite regularly displeasing its neighbours.
De Gaulle enjoyed grand gestures, especially rude ones. They won him obloquy at the time and since. His withdrawal from the central command structure of Nato, his public insistence that the United States should get out of Vietnam, his dabbling in Third World politics, and his attempts at détente with communist countries — all are held against him by today’s Atlanticists. He certainly made misjudgments. But, taken as a whole, his policy made sense for France. It was also subtler than it looked.
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Ed Hummer
May 29th, 2008 8:52am Report this commentHe betrayed the french in French Algeria and sowed the seeds for the current islamist disaster we are currently facing worldwide.
John Hislop
May 29th, 2008 12:03pm Report this comment...and so a French-dominated Europe, built by the French for the French, paid for by German money as rebranded good Europeans after the war, helped by American money as buffer states against the Soviets, while the British paid off lend-lease for American entry into the war.
Britain (not England) has never broken into this Franco-German relationship and should leave the EU at the first opportunity.
Only if we see the French abandoning the monthly trip to Strasbourg in favour of supranational Brussels will we know that things have changed.
I suspect Mr. Harris is right and that French nationalism, then as now, is the real driver behind "Le Project Europeene". They seem to get a very good deal out of it - paying as much in as they get out, consistently over decades. How were we so stupid?
Time to turn back and face the Atlantic and the free world and leave this EU, destined to collapse, behind.
We're looking for that tough leader who, like De Gaulle, will push for British interest above all else.
The nation state is not dead despite Common Purpose and inflated public sector salaries on the back of an EU model.
We can, and will, escape this strait jacket.
Penfold
May 29th, 2008 2:55pm Report this commentDe Gaulle's sole aim was to put "la gloire" back into France whilst conveniently forgetting that the country had been defeated in 1940, become Quislings and collaborators by '41 and needed America and Britain with the Commonwealth to achieve freedom in '44 from the Germans.
He also promoted the myth of the Maquis.
But say what you will, De Gaulle solely thought of France and acted in the best interests of France. A lesson we should take on board.
Ray
May 29th, 2008 3:11pm Report this commentJohn - We had a very tough leader in Margaret Thatcher, though sadly it was only towards the end of her premiership that she woke up to the precise nature of the EU project - by which time her political capital was spent and she was too weakened to stop it, other than at the margins. John Major was to be similarly disabused of any touching faith in the benign intentions of the European establishment.
What the Conservative Party desperately needs is for its present leadership to be under no illusions about the EU at the outset, and to careful plan and execute Britain's extraction from this nefarious superstate (indeed, the kind of long-term calculation that the Lady herself demonstrated when defeating Arthur Scargill and the NUM).
John Morrison
May 29th, 2008 4:28pm Report this commentJe compri.Vive DeGaulle.Je mais souviens.The US needs a Grande Charles.
John Morrison
May 29th, 2008 4:28pm Report this commentJe compri.Vive DeGaulle.Je mais souviens.The US needs a Grande Charles.
Ganpat Ram
May 30th, 2008 12:47pm Report this commentDe Gaulle was a great front-man for the French middle class at a time when they desperately needed one.
This hugely tall, endlessly eloquent soldier with his record of great bravery seemed impressive and so people did not notice the shabby nature of most of his supporters after the War.
The French middle class had been utterly discredited by the 1940 crushing defeat by Hitler and the general collaboration of the French with the Nazis that followed.
Such collaboration is not surprising: in civilized countries, depending on urban utilities, it is not easy to wage an insurgency against a ruthless power like the Nazis.
It is no accident that ferocious guerrilla resistance was faced by the Nazis only in backward peasant countries like Yugoslavia and Russia.
Britishers sneer at the French for having mostly collaborated with the Nazs duing the War - the windily "radical" Sartre, for instance, put out plays under Gestapo censorship ! - but what if Britain had been overrun by Hitler?
I am sure most Britons would have coolly collaborated with the Nazis too, and in fact, fought less bravely than the French resistance (largely communist inspired) did.
De gaulle was a smart guy. He saw it was crazy to hang on to Algeria. "Assimilate the Muslims?", he asked sarcastically. "With their exploding birth-rate THEY will assimilate US ! My village of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises will become Colombey-les-Deux-Mosques!"
Not a bad perception atl all for 1960 !!!
That level of understanding of important facts marks De Gaulle as a truly great leader.
How many, even TODAY, understand the extent of the Islamic threat to freedom?
Stephen Green
May 30th, 2008 5:12pm Report this commentAgreed. But is the UK a "nation" rather than two Nations,a pricipality and a province?
Cornwall has pretentions to nationhood as does Cumberland. Which is "real"?
David Lindsay
May 30th, 2008 5:37pm Report this commentFrance needs a new de Gaulle, a good conservative 'dirigiste' in opposition to the capitalist corrosion of everything that conservatives exist in order to conserve, who, inseparably therefrom, treats both halfs of the neocon-Islamic alliance just as the General treated all four of German occupation, Soviet infiltration, American domination, and the unbalancing of the nasecent EU by British accession. After all, de Gaulle was right on all those counts.
Yes, that is what France needs.
And so does Britain.
As Harris writes of the Fourth Republic:
"the system was incestuous and unstable, a small group of small men swapping posts in nominally different governments — all incapable of decisive action. Inflation corroded the franc, while collapse abroad, first in Vietnam but imminently in Algeria, corroded French self-respect far more."
Imagine!
François Portier
June 4th, 2008 9:02pm Report this commentA very cogent, well-written and well-informed article. Congratulations from a Frenchman. A note in passing to the people who contributed their comments. Judging from what I know (I wasn't born then)few French people were active collaborators during the period of occupation, or Resistance fighters for that matter, though it has become fashionable to play down the latter's not-so-insignificant role these days (my great-uncle was a Resistance fighter, was betrayed by another Frenchman, and got shot by the Germans in 1944). Most of them were patient onlookers, enduring restrictions and (I'm sorry to say) inaccurate Anglo-American bombing raids - Not unlike the Channel islanders at the same time, I suppose.
As a Eurosceptic (yes, we have them in France too) I heartily approve of the tone of the article. Keep up the good work!
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