Charles de Gaulle

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Charles de Gaulle : biography

22 November 1890 – 09 November 1970

Release of France

On 6 June 1944 the forces of allies made a successful drop-off on the territory of Normandy, opening at the same time the second front line in Europe. Having stayed on the territory of the released France for a short time, de Gaulle made his way to Washington for interrogation with President Roosevelt. The aim was still the same – to give back the independence and grandeur of France (those were the key words in political lexicon of the general). He said that listening to President Roosevelt, he finally convinced of the fact that the dealing relations between two governments had more logic and feeling instead of real powers, and the one who managed to catch and hold eventually succeed. If France wanted her former position back, said de Gaulle, it had to count on itself only.

After the rebels of the Resistance organization opened the way to Parish for tank forces, general de Gaulle entered the realized capital. The event was followed by the grand procession that walked along the streets of Paris and historical places of the city.

Government of the post-war France

Since August 1944 Charles de Gaulle became the chairmen of the council of ministers (that was the temporary government). Charles de Gaulle was taking the position for 1,5 years and afterwards called the activity of the council “saving” for France. Saving actually meant saving France from the influence of British and American block. The plans of the block consisted in demilitarization of Germany and exclusion of France out of the number of the great world powers. There were no representatives for France in conferences in Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta. Not long before the conference in Yalta, de Gaulle arrived in Moscow through Baku in order to get support from USSR. The general meant to conclude the alliance with USSR against of British and American threat.

Finally Stalin and General de Gaulle signed agreement about alliance and military help. The result of the alliance was meant to be coming back of France into the row of great government. Afterwards, French representatives took part into accepting capitulation of Germany in 1945. In addition to that France got some territories of the occupied territory of Germany and Austria.

The main problems of post-war France were low standards of life and high level of unemployment. Moreover the political situation in France was still rather unbalanced, just the same as the position of Charles de Gaulle. After the following conflicts about enlarging the budget for national army, Charles de Gaulle left his position the head of the government and left for Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, a small estate in Champagne. Charles de Gaulle compared his position with expulsion of Napoleon. But unlike Napoleon, the general still had the opportunity of observe the political situation, having hope to come back.

Being in opposition

The following part of the political career of Charles de Gaulle was connected with the RPF (French abbreviation), that was the organization, created to unite French people. De Gaulle planned to come back to political career with the help of that organization. The political position was mostly the same as the course of the previous de Gaulle’s organization. But it seemed that success was on the general’s side, but still RPF was far from winning among the other parties. And finally RPF came to its crush and Charles de Gaulle had to dissolve his party.

The events were followed by the new period in de Gaulle’s life. He spent the following five years in seclusion in Colombey. Coming back to power.

Years since 1957 till 1958 were the most crisis for the fourth republic. Economical crisis was worsened by the long war in Algeria. As de Gaulle mentioned afterwards, there was a necessity in cardinal actions. The war which was maintained in Algeria took much money and efforts. Everybody knew that somebody had to do something about the situation.

Ultra-right powers activated, starting with military organizations and they tried to influence on Algerian military government. On 13 May 1958 those military group managed to capture the building of the colonial administration in Algeria.