De Gaulle understood that only nations are real
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
Almost exactly half a century ago, on 1 June 1958, Charles de Gaulle became the last Prime Minister of the French Fourth Republic and immediately began the construction of the Fifth. The Fourth Republic, be it said, was not as bad as it was painted, not least by de Gaulle. The economy had grown, the communists were kept out, and France took the first steps to becoming a nuclear power. But 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.
Yet it was, above all, the old man’s cunning — he was already 67 — which saw him first, in June, enter the Palais Matignon and then, in December, the Elysée. As civil war threatened in May 1958, the General stood prominently aloof. But his agents were in hourly touch with the military leaders in Algiers as they semi-publicly planned their coup to topple the Republic. De Gaulle’s contempt for his political enemies was, as usual, justified. They crumbled and begged him to rescue France, and he promptly agreed.
Yet 50 years on, the French still find it difficult to come to terms with their self-appointed saviour. He is too large a figure for either critics or admirers to gain a purchase on. No French leader, except Napoleon, has had such an impact. In 1944 the General single-handedly devised the incredible but salutary public myth that France achieved its own liberation by its own efforts. His brief postwar government introduced social security, gave women the vote, and created the Ecole Nationale d’Administration, whose alumni have ruled (and misruled) ever since. Then, after 1958, de Gaulle launched France on more than a decade of rapid growth, industrial modernisation, low inflation and social reform. The technocrats provided the means, but he provided the direction, for his will was law.
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Ed Hummer
May 29th, 2008 8:52amHe 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...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 2:55pmDe 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 3:11pmJohn - 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 4:28pmJe compri.Vive DeGaulle.Je mais souviens.The US needs a Grande Charles.
John Morrison
May 29th, 2008 4:28pmJe compri.Vive DeGaulle.Je mais souviens.The US needs a Grande Charles.
Ganpat Ram
May 30th, 2008 12:47pmDe 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 5:12pmAgreed. 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 5:37pmFrance 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 9:02pmA 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!