Charles de Gaulle

President of the Republic · 1959-1969 · born on 22 November 1890, died on 9 November 1970

Called up in June 1940, General de Gaulle refused the defeat and launched the Appeal of 18 June, at the head of Free France. Head of the Provisional Government at the Liberation, he resigned in 1946, before returning to power in 1958 to resolve the Algerian crisis.

He founded the Fifth Republic, whose 1958 Constitution considerably strengthened the executive power. Elected president in 1959, he put an end to the Algerian War (Évian Accords, 1962) and pursued a foreign policy of independence: nuclear strike force, rapprochement with Germany, withdrawal from NATO’s integrated command.

After the events of May 1968, the referendum on the reform of the regions and the Senate was rejected in April 1969: he resigned immediately and retired to Colombey-les-deux-Églises, where he died in 1970. He remains the tutelary figure of the Fifth Republic.

In the tree of power

Further reading