Back

General Charles De Gaulle

This image was sourced from Wikipedia. Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F010324-0002 / Steiner, Egon / CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_B_145_Bild-F010324-0002,_Flughafen_K%C3%B6ln-Bonn,_Adenauer,_de_Gaulle-cropped.jpg 

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle, born in Lille on 22 November 1890, was known widely by the name of Charles De Gaulle (Trueman, 2015). He was a French general and statesman who he founded the French Fifth Republic, and was elected President of France from 1958 to 1969. During his reign as President he oversaw many important periods in history that shocked France and the violent demonstrations by university students in May 1968 particularly shook de Gaulle's government. These demonstrations lead to French citizens taking a general strike, which dramatically affected the whole of French society at the time, as it meant that there were thousands of workers who refused to work and keep the economy going. This could be seen as a paralysis of France which jeopardised the Fifth Republic. On 23rd and 24th June 1968, de Gaulle held general elections and the country rallied to him, which ended the crisis. In April 1969, de Gaulle resigned from his presidency after losing a referendum on a reform proposal. He then retired to his estate at Colombey-les-deux-Eglises to write his memoirs and sadly died of a heart attack on 9 November 1970, 2 years after the event of May 68 (Pickles, 2017). De Gaulle's legacy in French politics is still felt today by France and as a commemoration to his life, there is an airport in Lille dedicated to his memory entitled Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle. 

Bibliography

Trueman, C.N. (2015). Charles de Gaulle. The History Learning Site. Published on 26th May 2015. [online]. Available at: www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/political-leaders-of-world-war-two/charles-de-gaulle/ [last accessed 28/03/18]

Pickles, D.M. (2017). Charles de Gaulle; President of France. Published on October 09, 2017. Published by Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. [online]. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-de-Gaulle-president-of-France [last accessed 08 March 2018]