- Born
- Died
- Birth nameCharles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle
- Nicknames
- The Great Asparagus
- Le Grand Charles
- Mon Général
- L'Homme du 18 Juin
- Height6′ 4½″ (1.94 m)
- Charles André Joseph Marie DE Gaulle (22 November 1890 - 9 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to restore democracy in France. In 1958, he came out of retirement when appointed President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) by President René Coty. He rewrote the Constitution of France and founded the Fifth Republic after approval by referendum. He was elected President of France later that year, a position to which he was reelected in 1965 and held until his resignation in 1969.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bonitao
- His father, Henri de Gaulle, had fought in the Franco-German War of 1870/71. After school, de Gaulle pursued a military career. In 1909 he joined the French army. From 1910 he attended the prestigious military school of Saint-Cyr. During the First World War, de Gaulle suffered three wounds. He was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1916. In 1921 de Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux, with whom he had three children. As a junior officer in the 1920s, de Gaulle developed his military leadership philosophy, which was based on the officer's national recognition and his distance from the people. Meanwhile, in 1921 he became a lecturer in military history in Saint-Cyr. In the 1930s, he favored the use of the tank against the prevailing French military strategy. He wrote two books on the subject of leadership philosophy and strategy: "Le Fil de l''épée" (1932) and "Vers l''armée de métier" (1934). In 1937 he became a staff officer.
In the spring of 1940, de Gaulle was able to put his theory of mobile defense into practice for the first time during the German invasion of France. Nevertheless, the army was defeated by the attacking troops. When the French surrendered, de Gaulle fled to Great Britain. During the Second World War, de Gaulle called on the French people from London to resist the German occupation via BBC radio. Since the French military leadership itself was largely loyal to the collaboration government under Marshal Philippe Pétain, the exiled general became the Resistance's leading integration figure. After the Allied invasion of Normandy and the liberation of France, de Gaulle made a triumphant entry into Paris on August 26, 1944. He then integrated the Resistance combat units into the regular French army.
Although de Gaulle was not admitted to the Yalta Conference, France was assigned an occupation zone in Germany at the end of World War II. The general was elevated to head of the French interim government. However, under the resurgent and competing power of parliament and parties in France, de Gaulle submitted his resignation at the beginning of 1946. In 1947 he and his followers founded the "Rassemblement du Peuple Français", which represented a nationalist position against the multi-party parliamentary system, but quickly lost its importance as the Fourth Republic was established. In 1953, de Gaulle withdrew from political business and the French capital to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, where he wrote his three-volume memoirs of the Second World War in the following years.
However, in the wake of the Algerian crisis, de Gaulle returned to the political stage and was appointed the last Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic in the spring of 1958. Equipped with extraordinary powers, the general issued a new constitution. He himself now became the first president of the Fifth Republic, in which the center of power had shifted from parliament to the president. In this role, de Gaulle was able to bring about a solution to the Algerian conflict with the independence of the former colony by 1962. Internally, he was troubled by economic stagnation and the beginning protests by the student and youth movement. When he failed to amend the constitution again, the president resigned from office in 1969.
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle retreated again to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, where he died on November 9, 1970.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth
- SpouseYvonne de Gaulle(April 6, 1921 - November 9, 1970) (his death, 3 children)
- Children
- Towering height
- His name is synonymous with a political philosophy, "Gaullism" (from the French "Gaullisme"), an ideology based on his thoughts and actions that is still current powerful in France. The serving president, Jacques Chirac, is a Gaullist. Gaullism's central tenet is a desire for France to remain independent of influence from a foreign power. In foreign policy, national independence is stressed, with some degree of opposition to international organizations such as NATO. De Gaulle believed that France should not rely on any foreign country for its survival (thus the creation of the French nuclear deterrent) and that France should refuse subservience to any foreign power, be it the U.S. or the former Soviet Union. De Gaulle's policies of grandeur - the insistence that France is a major power in the world scene and military and economic forces to back this claim - also is part of Gaullism. The foreign policy of France was influenced by Gaullism even when Gaullists were not in power. Gaullism typically is equated with social conservatism, and it is generally considered a right-wing ideology, but there have also been left-wing Gaullists, the differences between the two consisting of differing social and economic policies. Gaullism has sometimes been characterized as a form of populism, since de Gaulle relied heavily on his personal charisma in the political realm.
- After his return to Paris in 1944, he moved back into his old office at the War Ministry where he had served undersecretary of state for national defense and war, underscoring the continuity of the Third Republic (which he had represented in the government in exile in London) and denying the legitimacy of Vichy France. He served as the President of the provisional government from September 1944 through January 20, 1946, when he resigned. De Gaulle was tired of the conflict between the political parties and did not approve of the draft constitution for the Fourth Republic which he believed placed too much power in the hands of parliament, which made the state vulnerable to shifts in party alliances.
- Was recalled to power upon the collapse of the Fourth Republic due to its inability to resolve the Algerian War. The Fourth Republic was undermined by the May 13, 1958 seizure of government buildings in Algiers by French settlers, who acted with the support of the Army. The French settlers in Algeria were protesting what they saw as the French government's weakness in dealing with the Arab majority's quest for Algerian independence. The Gaullist General Jacques Massu was installed as president of a Committee of Civil and Army Public Security and the French military Commander-in-Chief in Algeria, General Raoul Salan, announced that the Army had "provisionally taken over responsibility for the destiny of French Algeria" During the crisis, De Gaulle widely increasingly seen as the only person who could settle the Algerian question and stop the military rebellion. General Salan had declared "Vive de Gaulle!" from the balcony of the Algiers Government-General building on May 15th. Two days later, de Gaulle answered that he was ready to "take on the powers of the Republic" in what essentially was a military coup d'etat to forestall an even more egregious coup. To questions that his ascendancy threatened civil liberties, de Gaulle responded that, to the contrary, "...I have reestablished them when they had disappeared. Who honestly believes that, at age 67, I would start a career as a dictator?" A republican by conviction, de Gaulle maintained throughout the crisis that he would accept power only from the lawfully constituted authorities of the state. De Gaulle's stock as savior of France rose as French paratroopers from Algeria seized Corsica and planned a landing near Paris to likely seize the National Assembly. Except for the Communists, leaders across the political spectrum agreed to support de Gaulle's return to power (with the notable exception of François Mitterrand, then a liberal). French President René Coty appealed to the "most illustrious of Frenchmen" to become the President of the Council (Prime Minister) of the Fourth Republic on May 29, 1958, and de Gaulle accepted, with the proviso that he was intent on abrogating the constitution of the Fourth Republic, which he blamed for France's political weakness. The other precondition of his return was that he be given wide emergency powers for six months and was permitted to propose a new constitution to the French people. De Gaulle became premier on June 1, 1958, and the National Assembly granted him emergency powers as befits a state of siege for six months. A referendum on a new constitution that created a strong presidency took place on September 28, 1958 and was approved by 79.2% of those who voted, thus creating the Fifth Republic, which has lasted nearly half a century. In the elections held in November 1958, de Gaulle and his supporters in the Union pour la Nouvelle République-Union Démocratique du Travail won a comfortable parliamentary majority. De Gaulle subsequently was elected President of the Republic by the National Assembly with 78% of the vote by an electoral college consisting of parliamentarians and local politicians and was inaugurated in January 1959. He won re-election in 1965 under the current system, beating Mitterand in the second round after failing to achieve a majority in the first round. In all, he served 10 years as president, resigning on April 28, 1969 after the failure of a referendum to reform the Senate and local government, feeling that he had lost the support of the people.
- Children - Philippe de Gaulle (b. 1921), Elisabeth (1924-2013), and Anne (1928-1948).
- Led the Free French during WWII.
- Gold is absolute objectivity. It is blind, like justice. It has no politics and ideology, no likes or dislikes, no friends or enemies. All it recognizes is its possessor, whom it serves faithfully so long as he has it.
- [on action] Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.
- France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war.
- [from his victory speech at the liberation of Paris, August 23, 1945] Paris! An outraged Paris! A broken Paris! A martyred Paris! But... a liberated Paris! Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the armies of France, with the support and the help of all of France, of the fighting France, of the only France, the real France, the eternal France!
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