Charles de Gaulle
Fast facts
- Nationality
- French
- Order
- 18th President of the French Republic
Facts from Wikipedia’s “Charles de Gaulle” page (CC BY-SA 4.0).
General Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (22 November 1890 - 9 November 1970) was a French military and political leader. He was president of France from 1959 to 1969. He was a founding member and leader of the French Resistance during the Second World War.
De Gaulle chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to re-establish democracy in France.
In 1958, he came out of retirement: the Algerian War was happening. He rewrote the Constitution of France and founded the Fifth Republic after it was approved by a referendum. He was elected President of France later that year, a position to which he was re-elected in 1965 and held until his resignation in 1969.
The National Assembly brought him back to power in May 1958. He granted independence to Algeria. 900,000 French people in Algeria (called les pieds-noire) left for France. The Organisation armée secrète (OAS) tried to kill him. Frederick Forsyth used this incident as a basis for his novel The Day of the Jackal.
After the Algerian conflict, de Gaulle wanted to improve the French economy, and have an independent foreign policy. This was called by foreign observers the “politics of grandeur” (politique de grandeur). See Gaullism.
The French economy recorded high growth rates. In 1964, for the first time in nearly 100 years, France’s GDP overtook that of the United Kingdom. This period is still remembered in France with some nostalgia as the peak of the Trente Glorieuses (“Thirty Glorious Years” of economic growth between 1945 and 1974).
De Gaulle had many admirers, but he was also one of the most hated men in modern French history.
- His most famous saying was: “L’etat? c’est moi!”, roughly “The State? it’s me!”
Death
De Gaulle died in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises in 1970 while playing cards because of a brain aneurysm.
Written for younger readers
Charles de Gaulle, in simpler words
This version comes from Wikijunior, a set of books written for children aged 8 to 11. It is shorter and uses plainer language than the article above.
From Wikijunior: World War II
- Born: 22 November 1890
- Died: 9 November 1970
- Leader of: Free French during the German occupation, then France after the liberation
- Full name: Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle was a French general who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He fought during World War I and was a believer in the importance of the newly invented tanks and aircraft as a way of winning battles quickly. This knowledge helped him in World War II where he lead a successful tank attack against the invading Germans. But then he had to leave France for Britain because France surrendered to the Germans.
In Britain he created the “Free French”, an army of Frenchmen who had escaped the Germans. He trained them ready for the day when they could return and free their country. He returned with his army soon after D-Day and was involved in many big battles to drive the Germans out. Once France was free again in 1944 he became the Prime Minister of France. Later he was to become the French president.
Where this page comes from
The article above is adapted from “Charles de Gaulle” on Simple English Wikipedia, by its contributors. We removed reference markers, navigation boxes and tables, expanded measurement templates into readable numbers, and kept the prose otherwise intact. The simpler version is adapted from Wikijunior on Wikibooks.
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