Robert O. Paxton
Charles de Gaulle saved France twice. The first time was in June 1940, when the World War I hero Marshal Philippe Pétain signed an armistice with Hitler after France’s defeat by the Germans and set up a new collaborationist and authoritarian French state at Vichy, since Paris was occupied. De Gaulle, a relatively unknown brigadier general, gathered a few dissidents in London to form what became known as Free France. He gambled rashly but correctly that by contributing, however marginally, to the war against the Axis he was assuring a French presence on the ultimately victorious Allied side.
He saved France again in May 1958, when the faltering Fourth Republic faced a revolt by army leaders in Algeria who were frustrated by its failure to suppress the Algerian independence movement. As civil war threatened, de Gaulle assumed power without being elected but with the relieved assent of President René Coty and Prime Minister Pierre Pflimlin. On June 1, 1958, his authority was legitimated by a vote of 329–224 in the National Assembly. Seizing the moment, de Gaulle quickly commissioned a new constitution that replaced the unloved parliamentary republic with a strong presidential system. That constitution, which created the Fifth Republic, was approved by a referendum on September 28, 1958, and signed into law on October 4. On December 21 de Gaulle was elected the first president of the Fifth Republic. In a further referendum on October 28, 1962, the constitution was amended to provide for direct election of the president. De Gaulle was then reelected in 1965. The Fifth Republic’s powerful presidency, now solidly established, is his lasting monument.
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