biography
| name: |
de Gaulle, Charles (André Joseph Marie)
|
pronunciation:
[duh gohl]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1890–1970)
|
| biography:
| French general and first president of the Fifth Republic (1958–69), born in Lille, N France. He fought in World War 1, and became a strong advocate of mechanized warfare, but his efforts to modernize the French Army made little progress. With the fall of France (Jun 1940), he fled to England to raise the standard of the ‘Free French’, and entered Paris in the vanguard of one of the earliest liberation forces (Aug 1944). He became head of the provisional government, then withdrew to the political sidelines. Following the troubles in North Africa he became prime minister (1958), and emerged as the one man able to inspire confidence after the post-war procession of indecisive leaders. In late 1958 the Fourth Republic was dissolved and a new constitution drawn up, designed to strengthen the powers of the president. The Fifth Republic thus came into being, with de Gaulle as president. He practised a high-handed yet extremely successful foreign policy, repeatedly surviving political crises by the lavish use of the referendum. Independence was granted to all French African colonies (1959–60), and Algeria became independent (1962). He developed an independent French nuclear deterrent and withdrew French support for NATO, signed a historic reconciliation treaty with West Germany, and blocked Britain's entry into the European Economic Community. In the student uprising of May–June 1968, he fled Paris when the industrial workers staged what became the most sustained strike in France's history. He was forced to liberalize the higher education system and make economic concessions to the workers. In 1969 he resigned after the defeat of his referendum proposals for Senate and regional reforms. He then retired to Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises. |
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