William Tyler
The Fifth Republic: 1958-2022
William Tyler - The Fifth Republic: 1958-2022
- We are on our very last chapter of our history of France today. And I want to begin by reading some words from de Gaulle. “It was the sea. "A huge crowd was jammed together on either side "of the street, perhaps 2 million people. "The roofs too were black with many more. "Small groups were clustered at every window "with flags all around. "As far as the eye could see there was nothing "but this living tide of humanity in the sunshine "beneath the tricolour. "I went on, touched and yet tranquil "amid the inexpressible exaltation of the crowd "under the storm of voices echoing my name. "The moment was one of those miracles "of the national consciousness, one of those gestures, "which sometimes through the centuries "illuminate the history of France. "In this community, with only a single thought, "a single enthusiasm, a single cry, "all differences vanished, all individuals disappeared.” And that is how de Gaulle described his walk down the Champs-Elysees on the 26th of August, 1944. Some of you will remember that last time I spoke, we talked about his speech the day before, on the 25th of August when he spoke from the town hall, the city hall in Paris, and he made reference to the France eternal, you remember? But this was his experience walking down the Champs-Elysees. He talks about, well, in effect, he talks about one nation. We’ve come together not as individuals, but as a community. But there are a number of things to say about that. First of all, that the liberation of Paris was not the liberation of France. The liberation of France had begun the year before in September ‘43 when Corsica was liberated. It finished only in April 1945 when the last two pockets of German resistance on the Brittany coast at Saint-Nazaire and Lorient were finally taken by the allies.
So although Paris was important, and we noted that last time we met, it was extremely important to de Gaulle both for the symbolism of recapturing the capital, but also because he was concerned that there would not be a communist takeover of Paris, which would lead to the same situation as has happened after the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, with the establishment of the Paris Commune, which we’ve also talked about. So it’s an important date, is the end of August, 1944. Paris is liberated, de Gaulle, the symbol of France, the living symbol of France, of a free France, is actually there in the capital. And, well then the problems begin. The quotation I’ve read came from “France: The Dark Years” by Julian Jackson, which is on my blog. But he also writes in this way about these times, and I thought this sentence was particularly good. “The liberation,” says Jackson, “was a rite of passage between the old regime and the new. "An unreal moment suspended between past and future.” Now, historians always like to chop up history into bits, but for me, you can chop France up into bits. And the story of contemporary France begins with de Gaulle in August, 1944 in Paris, and that’s the France that we see today. The first part of the post-war France I see as lasting from 1944, de Gaulle in Paris, to 1970, the year de Gaulle died, two years after leaving office for the final time. And it was in that period, and that period is the one I want to speak about today, it was that period, 1944 to 1970, that settled the basis of France until the present day and looks as though it will settle France for the continuing future.
We have discussed before, when did the French Revolution of 1789 end? And lots of people say lots of different answers. And if you were writing an essay, you would have to go through every answer and say the pluses and the minuses for the answer. But my answer would always be that it ended when de Gaulle established the Fifth Republic’s Constitution in the 1960s. And having done that, he provided France with a constitution that for the French works. And the Constitution of the Third Republic had not worked. And all the things that had gone on between 1789 and the Third Republic, you remember well, the Third Republic beginning with the abdication of Napoleon III in 1870, the Third Republic had lasted from 1870 to the war. And it really didn’t serve France well. We went into that on earlier meetings of how many governments there were. France needed stability. But more than that, after 1945, it needed, needed to come together. It needed to reform itself, because after all, during the war, it wasn’t just occupied by the Germans, which would have been a problem in itself. But to remember that for two years there was this extraordinary fascist French regime in Vichy, led by the hero of the First World War, Marshal Petain. And that regime was a grim one as we saw last week. So France needed to heal itself between the divisions of what we might describe as the, as those in the resistance, the resistors and the collaborators. Collaborators including the Vichy government who collaborated of course with their German masters, and those who collaborated directly in the German controlled area of northern France, directly with the German occupation forces.
So there was a big problem, but there were bigger problems even than that. Why? Well, there was a problem of the Marxists, of the Communists. So worried were they in the States, that they, the cabinet of Roosevelt was talking about what they could do if after the war ended France was to have a Marxist government. And that, of course, is exactly what Stalin was hoping for, a Marxist government. And although that seems to us an extraordinary worry that they should have, because we know they never did get a Marxist government, it was a very real worry in 1944/45, particularly because there were lots of communists who were involved in the resistance. Now the resistance groups, as I’m sure you were told by Trudy when she spoke about them, were an enormous variety of views were in the different groups. But the communist group was particularly powerful and it was particularly powerful in Paris, the reason that as we’ve seen that de Gaulle was anxious to reach Paris as soon as possible. So de Gaulle had major problems that he needed to fix. And although he was clear in his own mind that France could be brought together, that France could be brought together democratically, he was perfectly well aware that there were strains on him and restraints on him to bring that about. And he saw himself as the person that had to do that. He was the head of the provisional government after all. He’d been France or free France since his arrival in Britain in 1940. And he now sets about establishing a provisional government prior to holding general elections for a democratic France. Jackson writes this, this is I think the last piece I’m reading from Jackson this evening. Find the right page, I’ll read it to you, 571.
By the way, I apologise if you see my hot water bottle there, but it’s there to help my back, 'cause I’ve been in some problems. So this is what Jackson says. “From the moment he entered Paris on the 24th of August, "de Gaulle’s every action had been calculated "to bring the resistance to heel "and reassert the supremacy of the state. "It was not by coincidence that he immediately installed "himself at the Ministry of War and then paid a visit "to the prefecture of police. "These were symbols of state power. "Only reluctantly had he been prevailed upon "to visit the Hotel de Ville where the resistance "was waiting to receive him. "The Hotel de Ville was a symbol of revolution "in the 19th century, and from its balcony, "the Second and Third Republics have been proclaimed. "De Gaulle, who was only well aware of the history "of this place was asked, "was asked to proclaim the restoration "of the Third Republic.” He refused on the grounds that the Third Republic had always existed. After all, the Bourbons said, “L'Etat c'est moi,” the state is me. Well, so did de Gaulle. He had represented the Third Republic. He’d been a minister in the Third Republic when France fell. And he was the direct link to the pre-war Third Republic. And he wasn’t going to proclaim the restoration of a Third Republic because in his eyes, and importantly the symbolism was that it was never, it was never suspended. It existed with him and his provisional governments. He said, “The Republic has not ceased to exist.” He made a short speech and surprisingly in some ways the resistance leaders went along with him. I had an email from one of you, a Canadian, who said he’d heard de Gaulle speak in Canada when Canada, on that well-known occasion when de Gaulle talks about a free Quebec. And our Canadian friend said, you could not but observe how he was a striking figure. And I think he did. He was a tall man for a start.
But I think the fact that he was a, he was this striking figure and he had so much self-belief that it would be difficult in this victory to gain say him. So he established this provisional government based upon his views about recreating France, the France eternal as he called it. But he needed, he needed all his skill to do so, because you see, although he dominated the resistance, they had already begun a political platform for reform of the state. And if I turn to Rob Kedward’s book, “La Vie en Bleu,” which we mentioned last time, I read this. “By far the most ambitious project to emerge "from the resistance, the Charter of the Council "of the Resistance gave substance to the revolution.” Now de Gaulle is not happy about this. Some of the ideas that the Council of the Resistance had, were perfectly acceptable to de Gaulle, but he doesn’t like the idea that the Council of Resistance will turn itself into a political body now that the war is ending. And in particular, he’s fearful of the communist influence within the Council of the Resistance. Some of the things are straightforward. “Its social aims included structural change "to produce work of participation in management, "the nationalisation of leading industries "and financial companies, full implementation of a state "system of social welfare, "equal rights for all colonial citizens.” Although there was no commitment to decolonization. “The Charter envisaged that the Council of the Resistance "would continue as a political and social force "in a free France.” And de Gaulle thought this is a potential threat to the state. Now remember what I’ve said earlier this evening, let alone on previous occasions. Revolution of 1789 is not over at this point in my view.
And the French could have taken to the streets and done whatever and de Gaulle, although I think de Gaulle had distinctly Napoleonic views really of himself. And I think he would’ve loved to have become the emperor of the French. But overriding that, as I said last time, was his total commitment to democracy, of liberte, egalite, fraternite, of the very basis of the revolution of 1789. And he wasn’t going to let go of that. He refused the Council of the Resistance a role in the reconstruction of the state. But he accepted some of the suggestions in their charter. So he’s a wily politician, is de Gaulle. A very clever politician. He’s going to accept some of the arguments, but he’s not going to accept them, because they are a potential threat to the very concept of the state of France. One of the things that de Gaulle and the resistance were agreed upon, was that those who had collaborated with either the Vichy government or the German occupying forces should pay a penalty. So what did collusion mean? Well, it meant different things in different parts of France because at the beginning from '44 to '45, there is the justice of the streets, people pointing fingers. You sent a letter about my brother to the German authorities accusing him of being in the resistance and he died as a result of your letter. So letters written by French men and women denouncing their neighbours was one of the things that labelled you a collaborator. Others were people who dealt commercially with the Germans, supplying food, for example, drink whatever. And then there were the people that made profits out of it.
And the black marketeers. There seemed no end to the number of infractions that you could have committed, that put you in the firing line for local revenge. But the picture that comes to mind when we talk about this, these reparations as it were, these are punishments. It’s the picture of French women having their hair shaved, things thrown at them, who are accused, mainly of sexual relations with Germans. Sometimes not sexual, but overwhelmingly sexual relations with Germans. And Kedward says this. I’m sorry, my back is bad, I’m sorry if I’m slipping down. “The ubiquity of the most noted public revenge "at the local liberations was gender specific. "Women accused of intimate relations with the enemy "were subjected to a public shearing of their hair, "shaving of their heads, and in many places enforced "nakedness and exposure to crowds of jeering onlookers. "The shearing was an archaic ritual punishment of women "by men most often connected with the repression "of female adultery. "The photographs taken in numerous places of this display "of retribution do not hide the presence of women "in the crowds urging on the men. "Nor do written records deny the depth of anger expressed "by both men and women at the material advantages "which lovers of German soldiers were accused "of having enjoyed.” Food. “It is estimated that some 20,000 head shearings took place "at or after the liberation all over France. "Only 35 to 50 of which are recorded as punishments on men. "The greatest density was in areas such as the coastal "region of Northern Brittany and the industrial centres "north of Paris where there were strong concentrations "of German personnel employing local people. "Probably less than 50% of the women sheared "were specifically convicted of sexual relations. "But it was this reason which assumed a form "of well, universality across France.”
The women who had sold their bodies for food to German soldiers and German civilians. It was a terrible moment and it’s only brought to an end when de Gaulle establishes a judicial system of courts to deal with the problem of collaboration. And Kedward writes of these courts that were established in the following way. He writes, “A special liberation court "set up by the provisional government of de Gaulle "to carry out the purge of collaborators in legal fashion, "mostly put an end to the disorder "of the summary executions, though a few were perpetrated "even in 1945.” So it shows, well, it shows a number of things. It shows that the government is having difficulty in exercising power across France. It shows also that the government is really prepared, at least at the beginning to turn a blind eye to the retribution that’s being taken on and taking place in all the communities across France. In the end, when de Gaulle and the provisional government feel strong enough, they’re able to introduce a system of courts that will review the cases. And from that time on, basically everything is done through the courts. For example, Marshal Petain returned from Germany where he had fled, he returned back to France, was arrested and tried in the summer of 1945, tried on a charge of treason. He was found guilty, but the sentence was lifetime imprisonment, largely because de Gaulle who’d served under him in the interwar years, had an admiration for the hero of Verdun. Laval, the number two to Petain and the really, the, the Eminence grise, if we can put it into French of the Vichy regime, was actually shot. But very few were shot in the end. In a way, the French buried it. It would’ve been better in retrospect, had the French more openly acknowledged the problem.
But really as the 1940s move into the 1950s, they didn’t. And the one question you didn’t ask is, what did you do in the war? However, some trials continued, particularly of those who’ve been involved with sending of Jews into extermination camps. And those trials continued into the last two decades of the 20th century. It isn’t that France did nothing but it sought to not mention the war. It sought to move on and to accept the myth of de Gaulle that France was never defeated. He represented France. The free French army based in Britain represented France. General Leclerc who took the surrender of the German occupying force in Paris. The French themselves had saved Paris. And then there was the question of what de Gaulle referred to as internal army of France. That is the resistance. And so he created this myth of the war. And you don’t mention Vichy France and you don’t mention what French men and women did in occupied German France in the north. You turn the page and the history, the history reads brilliantly, but it isn’t history, it’s mythology. France faced numerous problems as all the countries who’d fought in the war had done when the war ended in '45. And not just a deeply divided society, which is what I’ve been talking about so far, but what was also, and the loss of so many of its people, the loss of so many French men and women. And to read it is easy, until you realise this is, these are lives of individuals. And Kedward writes this in “La Vie en Bleu.” He writes, “The human costs of the war from 1939 to '45 "for France and the four years of occupation were estimated "to total 600,000 deaths. "210,000 in the regular army "and the forces of the free French "and the internal army, in other words, the resistance. "But also Alsace-Lorrainers forcibly conscripted.” Remember that Alsace-Lorraine was incorporated into Germany. “But also Alsace-Lorrainers forcibly conscripted "to fight for the Germans. "150,000 civilians of whom 60,000 died under bombings "by both Allied and German aircraft. "140,000 deaths in German camps and workplaces "encompassing over 73,000 Jews, "60,000 political deportees for acts of resistance "and 40,000 prisoners of war and 40,000 workers.”
It’s so easy to read these figures. 73,000 Jews. I always say when we come to these huge numbers, just imagine for a moment you’re in a hall and you’re at the top of the hall and there’s a door to come in and a door to go out. And 73,000 people walk in front of you in one door out the other. 73,000 thousand. And that was the Jews. The full figure of this 600,000, see, I can’t. And I don’t think people can conceive of what 600,000 people look like. I can’t conceive of what 73,000 look like. I’ve only been in a crowd of about 40 odd thousand for a football match. And I can’t imagine how long it will take for those people to walk past me in a hall. But 600,000? 73,000 one by one. All of whom died, some under the most appalling circumstances in the extermination camps. And on the other hand, there were those who collaborated. This is difficult. We never faced that in Britain. Well we did face it in the Channel Islands. And they did much as the French did. Just basically ignored the problem. Just don’t ask the question of what you did in the war in Guernsey or Jersey. We would’ve been no different if the Germans had landed here. Make no mistake about that. Human nature is human nature. But in addition to the loss of people, France lost a lot of its industry because its industry was based in the north and that suffered enormously. It also was in dire straits in terms of its agricultural industry. There was a need to begin the task of healing and rebuilding. So de Gaulle founded the provisional government, as I said, but general election was held in October, 1945 under the Constitution of the Third Republic. And the left gained the victory and de Gaulle stepped aside. He thought they would ask him to come back, they didn’t. And in self-imposed exile, de Gaulle begins establishing a political party of his own later to be known as Gaullist of course.
In 1947, the elected government draw up a new constitution. It was largely a tweaking of the Third Republic’s constitution, but it is the Constitution of the now Fourth Republic. It was relatively ignored, I think one might say by the general public. They weren’t interested. They wanted food, they wanted jobs. They weren’t interested about constitutional matters. This Fourth Republic only lasted between 1946 and 19, and sorry, 1946 and 1958. '46 to '58 is the Fourth Republic. It really was a repeat of the Third Republic of the interwar years. It was weak, it kept changing, government’s party, it was a mess and it wasn’t really dealing with the issues facing France. But one thing helped, and that is the Marshall Plan from the United States. France received $28 billion from the Marshall Plan, which enabled it to do two things. One, to kickstart the post-war economy of France, and secondly, to do an extraordinary thing. Throughout European history, since the fall of Rome, various people have sought to create one Europe, one Europa. And now France does it through its foreign minister, Robert Schuman. And he proposed and it came into being in 1951, the European coal and steel community. It was set up to regulate the two industries of coal and steel. A treaty was signed in Paris to set it up. France and West Germany, remember, Germany was divided in 1945 between West and East. West Germany and France are the important countries, but they were joined by Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Of course it had enormous economic impact, but that wasn’t what the French were about. It wasn’t what Schuman was about.
Schuman himself said, “I aim to make war not only unthinkable, "but materially impossible.” In other words, if you don’t have the coal and the steel controlled only by you, by which he means Germany, then Germany can’t threaten France again. Remember, France has been at war with Germany since Napoleonic times and has suffered badly. The Franco-Prussian war in 1870, the First World War in 1914, and now the war which just ended. So the whole purpose of the coal and steel community for the French was a political reason to prevent war coming yet again, to keep the Germans in check. This coal and steel community metamorphosed, first into the common market, then into the European economic community, and finally today into the European Union. And that is an extraordinary development, because post the collapse of Eastern European communism, the European Union is spreading from Western Europe into central and eastern Europe. And it’s becoming, slowly. Well, its supporters say, but slowly becoming to resemble in a modern way, something that the Roman Empire, resembling something of the Roman Empire of the distant past of the ancient world. This is a huge development. Britain, of course, allied so closely to the United States, doesn’t want to know about it in 1945. But not being in it was one of the reasons why our economy was suffering. And both the Conservative government under Harold Macmillan and a Labour government under Howard Wilson, sought entry in 1963 and 1960.
And de Gaulle said, non, non! You cannot join. He has a visceral dislike of what he calls Anglo-Saxons, by which he means Britons and Americans. He felt slighted in the war that he wasn’t seen as an equal. He wasn’t, for example, at Yalta, the great conference that began to, or at Potsdam, the two great conferences that laid out the map of a future Europe, the Americans and the British did not invite him. And Britain is there because Britain is so closely allied to the United States. And de Gaulle really makes no distinction between Britain and America. And he doesn’t want Britain intervening. One of the reasons he doesn’t want Britain in the common market is because America, he believes, might be pulling Britain’s strings. Indeed, when Britain did finally enter in 1972, Britain became the link into the common market for later American administrations. But Britain never really bought Schuman’s concern about to make war not only unthinkable, but materially impossible, and later the French pushing for a European constitution and Britain felt uneasy about all of that. So that in the referendum held in Britain, those seeking to leave, won. But it was a close run thing as the Duke of Wellington might have said. And Britain withdrew in 2020, having had the referendum earlier, we withdrew from the EU. The outcome of that we do not know. Has it weakened the EU? It doesn’t appear to have weakened it at all. Has it strengthened Britain’s position in the world? Hardly. Has it meant that Britain’s links to America have become stronger? Absolutely not.
And so we can’t tell what it means. In fact, in terms of the crisis that the west faces with Ukraine, Britain and America stand shoulder to shoulder, not as they say a cigarette paper between the policies of the US and Britain. Moreover, Britain and America, without America it would hardly exist, NATO has played an important role and we are in Britain members of that. Moreover, Britain has a separate nothing to do with the EU treaty with France. A mutual military treaty with France. And so I’m not sure whether, well, I think what I am sure about is we can’t make a judgement about Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. It’s too early to say what is going to happen. What we can say is the EU can function well without Britain. And also we can say that Britain has no intention of withdrawing from NATO. And America and Britain have been at the top of the table in supporting by money and arms, the Ukrainian administration of Zelenskyy. Now, it wasn’t only in France itself that there were problems. There were problems in the French colonies. And it all began in 1945. Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam independent. Well, it’s true that with British support, the French regained South Vietnam, not the north, where Ho Chi Minh is. And that of course is lead to the horrendous Vietnam War when the imperial power is no longer France and Britain, and Britain doesn’t even take part in the Vietnam War, but it’s America taking on that imperial burden.
Although the Americans wouldn’t describe it in those terms, that’s what it is. And at the same time, in 1945, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria resist French colonial rule. And the French withdrawal from Empire is as, is as awful as the withdrawal of other European empires from their colonies. But two things stand out as regards France. The first is that in Indo-China in 1954, the French were roundly defeated at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. And Dien Bien Phu was a humiliation for France who prides itself on its military glory of the Napoleonic years. It is utterly defeated at Dien Bien Phu. And in Algeria, well Algeria, the war goes on to 1962 and it’s a terrible war. Murders, assassinations, and almost a civil war because what marks Algeria out from other French colonies is by the time Algeria became independent in 1962, there were over 1 million French living in Algeria. After all, Algeria had been French since 1830. So there are generations of French Algerians. They’re normally called in French pieds noir, P-I-E-D-S N-O-I-R. Dusty feet. Dusty feet because it’s a way that the French referred to their own French people who’d gone well, not gone native, but had gone to live in the empire. They were looked down upon. And the problem with the pieds noir is they didn’t want France to give up Algeria, they’re very right wing. And trouble starts. Trouble starts in 1958 in a major way, which led to the collapse of the Third Republic. Parts of the French Army rebelled that were based in Algeria against the French government in Paris.
It was a terrible moment for France and General Massu, M-A double S U, General Massu was contemplating, well, he was contemplating a coup d'etat to remove the government in Paris, launched from North Africa in the same way that Franco had launched his campaign to start the Spanish Civil War from Spanish North Africa. So Massu thought he could do the same. And they did in fact capture Corsica and they were prepared and had plans to capture Paris. It was a dreadful moment. De Gaulle emerges from his self-imposed exile, places himself in the middle of the crisis, saying to the nation, to the people, “Suspend the government, "create a new constitutional system.” And because of enormous pressure, the politicians agreed and asked de Gaulle to form a new government. De Gaulle came in as Prime Minister, not President in 1958. And then he begins the final sorting out of the chaos of the Third Republic in the pre-war years, the surrender of the Third Republic to the Germans and the collapse of be Third Republic’s son, if you like, the Fourth Republic. And it is de Gaulle who manages to produce a Fifth Republic and a new constitution. The most important part of the new constitution came about in 1962 when the President would be elected not by parliament like a British Prime Minister in that sense, but by universal vote, by universal suffrage in like America. The President is elected. And this gave a stability that France had frankly not had since 1789 and the Bourbons. But he had to solve first the Algerian question. He would, he visited Algeria very soon after becoming Prime Minister and he stood up and said, “I’ve understood you.”
And he was a magnificent speaker and people clapped. But he never said who the you were. The pieds noir and the right wing and the French Army thought he meant them, that he would not give Algeria away. That’s why they supported de Gaulle. They thought de Gaulle would not give Algeria away. But Algeria was given away because de Gaulle is not in any way dictatorial or in any way far right. De Gaulle is a conservative small seat, a conservative politician. And he knows, he knows that in the end, Algeria must be free and free it became in 1962. It was a huge triumph for de Gaulle. The establishment of the Fifth Republic and the resolution of the problems in Algeria. The pieds noir, 800,000 of them came to live in the south of France. And there was a worry that this would create a potential civil war in France. The Vichy German occupied France divisions, yet again, north versus south, it didn’t. And the pieds noir issue has faded away. De Gaulle was right. Leaving Empire was proving difficult for the British, the Belgians. Everybody with an empire found it extremely difficult and the French did, but de Gaulle did the right thing for the right reasons. Democracy. And he knew he could not hold Algeria by force. I want to just say briefly a word about de Gaulle’s attitude to America and Britain and that includes Canada. We know for example, that he was opposed to Quebec being still part of Canada. That’s very clear.
We know that he opposed British entry into the common market. But he did something, I suppose if you’re British, American, Canadian or whatever, you would regard as the worst thing he did. He sought to extract France from NATO. He half achieved that, not entirely, but he began when in 1958, the year he comes into office, he asks American and Britain to allow him to join those two nations as an equal partner. Neither Britain nor America would have him. He’s too difficult to deal with frankly. And he began constructing an independent defence force, including a nuclear defence force. And he didn’t leave NATO, but he’s a half member of NATO, rather like Britain was a half member of the common market and the European Union. And there was a crisis of sorts that arose when he announced that France would remain a member of NATO and was committed to the defence of Europe against the Warsaw Pack countries, Eastern Europe. But with its own forces, which would not be under UN command. And he wanted all NATO’s forces to be removed from French soil, that included the Americans. And today France remains pretty well the only country in Europe without American bases. When it was reported to the President, Lyndon Johnson, he gave what I think is a fantastic put down response. Lyndon Johnson said, I’m sure he used more colourful language and is not recorded, but Lyndon Johnson said, “Oh, he wants all American soldiers to leave France? "Does that include,” said Lyndon Johnson, “the ones in the cemeteries?” And I suppose that comment is at the base of what a lot of British as well as American people felt in the 1960s. De Gaulle is ungrateful. But remember what de Gaulle is about. He’s not ungrateful in that sense. He just wants la gloire, that wonderful phrase which we learned from Napoleonic times.
La gloire, the glory of France. He, they, the French go on objecting to English and American-English invading their language. The purity of French must be preserved, so must France itself. It, after all, it had a seat on the United Nations and still does on the Security Council. But de Gaulle wants to be seen not for himself, I think, as an equal of the British Prime Minister, or in particular the American President, but not for himself, but for France. France is there. I remember going to a meeting in the Council of Europe and I was not a delegate from Britain. I was what they laughingly called an expert for the Council of Europe itself. And they had forgotten to leave me a seat at the top table, whether deliberately or otherwise, I wouldn’t like to say. Most of the bureaucrats were French. And so my German friend said, I said, well, it doesn’t matter, I’ll sit anywhere. But I couldn’t sit with the British obviously, 'cause I was not, so my German colleague said, come and sit with us, William. So I did. And there’s a label in front of all of the participants saying which country they represent. So ours said, ours said, it said very clearly, Germany. And she said in English, Germany. So my friend said, can you turn it round William? So why, we’re in the right place, it says Germany.
She said, turn it round. And I turned it round and then it reads Allemagne, 'cause in the Council of Europe, there are only two languages, French and German. She said, I’m not going to sit behind the language, behind the French language she said, we can sit behind the English language. It’s strange, isn’t it, how these things operate on an international level as late as, that was the 1990s when I had that meeting. And then we come to the last time when de Gaulle has to save France, which is the May, 1968 student riots and mass strikes across France. Some of who can, well they say, if you can remember the 1960s, you couldn’t possibly have been there. But I think we can remember the 1960s, some of us, and it was a time of well anti-Vietnam protests. There was a postgraduate student, American postgraduate student in my college at Oxford who went berserk with an axe, actually. And we all thought the police would come, but they didn’t. The CIA came, he was never to be seen again. He had been escaping the draught is why he’d come to Oxford in the first place. So he was removed, all of these things were happening. The grandson of Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister, threw himself from a top floor in a house to his death whilst I was there. He was a student, by taking LSD. And all of you listening from other countries relate to that. And so there was a feeling that there was a change coming across the whole of Western society in the 1960s. And it blew up in May, 1968. Demonstration, strikes, challenging the government, challenging de Gaulle in particular. He’s an old man, he doesn’t understand, he’s out of date.
We need change. He thought that France was on the brink of civil war. And he went missing. He didn’t even tell the Prime Minister where he was. He was in Germany. Germany because the French had an army in Germany commanded by General Massu, the same right wing general who was planning coups from Algeria reinstated in the French Army. He’s now in Germany. And de Gaulle says to him, if necessary, will your men march into Paris from Germany? And he said, yes. And de Gaulle goes back and he makes a television broadcast in which he concedes many things, but not the government of the country. And he calls a referendum and he wins the referendum. And the second referendum is called which he loses by a small minority on rather an unimportant issue. And he walks away. But he saved France from potential civil war. And you say, when did the revolution end? Nothing like this has happened here in Britain since the 18th century and prior. In France in 1968, it looked as though France would divide again. Generationally, perhaps. Maybe in terms of class. I had a student of mine who was French obviously, and was a student at the Sorbonne. And she was the most, how can I say? I hope Americans, Canadians know if the British say proper, we mean somebody who’s rather very proper and you don’t really knows what, and very proper, very well dressed, spoke perfect English. And she said, oh, I helped make bombs, you know, William, in May, 1968 at the Sorbonne. I couldn’t believe it. This was incredible, but it happened.
But de Gaulle saved France. My argument with de Gaulle and my argument for de Gaulle is that he saved France not once in 1940 by establishing the free French army in Britain and establishing a government, a provisional government during the course of the war. But he saved it in 1958 by sorting out the constitution, which was a complete failure, establishing the Fourth, Fifth Republic. And he resolved the Algerian question. And then finally in 1968, he resolved the student and wider rebellion, again perhaps preventing civil war. Many French people feel that he did. He is a quite remarkable man in my view. And it’s on the basis of de Gaulle, he resigned in '69. He went into retirement, he died in 1970. That’s why I say modern France is based upon the period 1944 to 1970. And all that’s happened since 1970 is built upon the basics created by de Gaulle. France has not faced the, well, it’s faced the possibility, but it has not faced the reality of a far left or a far right government. It has remained a true example of European liberal democracy. And it also managed to move from a right wing president to a left wing where Mitterrand became president. And Mitterrand’s presidency, he showed strength of the Fifth Republic. So if I’m forced to really put a date on the end of the French Revolution, it is with the construction finally in 1962 in its final form of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. And for that, it’s de Gaulle. And if we’re American or we’re British or we’re Canadian, we hold grudges against de Gaulle. Yes we do. And that’s understandable.
But the truth is that de Gaulle did it for France. Do you remember from last week that his speech at the city hall at the Hotel de Ville in Paris on Liberation Day 1944 that I spoke about last week when he used the phrase, Eternal France, France Eternal. He finished by saying, “We have nothing else to wish than to show ourselves "up to the end worthy of France. "To show ourselves up to the end worthy of France.” And that is de Gaulle’s gift to history, to European history and to French history. And France remains a leading power in Europe and a global power as well. However much the British resent the French. Politically, France is a force to be recognised still in the world despite 1940, its surrender. And despite the years '40 to '44, when France is terribly divided. And despite the fact that France could have fallen in '58 or '68. It’s now solid on solid ground and it’s on solid ground because de Gaulle had his image of France, not of himself, let me emphasise it, I don’t see it as for him. He did it for la gloire de France, for the glory of France. And I think that’s an appropriate phrase on which to end this series we’ve been doing on French history. And I’m sure lots of you have got lots of things to say.
Q&A and Comments:
You have. Anthony, “A little follow up information. "If you recall from the last talk, "my youthful rhinoscopy of de Gaulle "was at the French Lycee in London.” Oh, right, okay.
Q: Nell says, “You say the French revolution finally ended "with de Gaulle’s new Republic, "but what about the uprisings in '68?”
A: Well, I think probably you put that on before I came to it. What I would say is that the Fifth Republic’s constitution held in 1968, but you can rightly say '68. I think originally I said 1970, it’s de Gaulle’s death. You can take whatever dates you like, but I hope from what I said today, you can, you can see that it didn’t end until the post-war years.
Q: “Patrick told us yesterday, "Churchill found de Gaulle irritating.” Yes. What was so irritating about de Gaulle?
A: Well, the first thing is he spoke perfect English but refused to use it. But he was also, he, it’s his height, people who are tall and look down upon you, it’s an arrogance that he had, but it’s an arrogance for France, not for himself. And he was irritating. I mean you remember Churchill’s phrase, we all have a cross to bear. Mine was the cross of Lorraine, which was the symbol of the free French.
Miriam, “Decades ago, I was a governess in France "for Madam Jean Roland who frequently had dinner "with de Gaulle when her husband was a cabinet minister.” Fantastic, fantastic! I know one thing though, Miriam, if I might say so. I’m sure de Gaulle never made a pass at you. His private life was absolutely, well I think, I don’t know that you can say it these days, but Madame de Gaulle certainly wouldn’t have allowed it to. Let’s put it like that.
Q: Who is this, sorry Eli. “Was the way France dealt with collaborators unique "or was it the same in other occupied countries?”
A: It was the intensity in France that was unique when it was done by ordinary communities. France was more divided, shall we say, than the Dutch were or even the Belgians.
No, I think France is a case on its own. It’s a very good question and it’s a sort of question that I would note and say if I was giving an essay out in a future course, that would be an essay I would give. But I think there is a difference in scale in France.
Q: Abigail asks, “Have you seen the wonderful film "about the career of Simone Veil that just came out?”
A: No. “It’s called "Simone: Woman of the Century.”“ Thank you for that, I will try and see it. And others might like to know.
Q: What was the Jewish population of France before the war?
A: Barbara, I’m sorry, I just don’t have that figure in front of me.
Yes, Ed, you’re quite right. 600,000 French dead. Your Jewish audience are all thinking of 6 million sadly. Yes, absolutely correct, of course. But I wanted to emphasise what was happening in France, not the war as a whole. And I don’t mean to in any way to downplay 6 million. Well just think of 6 million passing in front of you.
Yeah, Peter, you’re right, of course.
Sheila, "In 1995, visited Lyon, went to the tourist office, "asked about travelling to Le Chambon-surs-Lignon "and I had wanted to travel by train, "but no trains no longer went. "They asked me why I wanted to go at the end of May. "Skiing season was over. "I explained I wanted to visit to see the village "which had saved 5,000 Jews, mainly children, "and take photos of locations. "And they had no information and seemed very surprised "by what I said.” 1994, yeah, that’s not good.
Rita, “A book from democracy to deportation, the Jews of France and the Revolutions, the Holocaust.” Abigail says, what I think most of us know, “Simone survived Auschwitz, "her father and mother and some siblings were murdered. "She went on to be a force for good, "for women and prisoners and human rights, "and was elected to be the first president to the EU.” Oh, Rita.
“Before World War II, 43 million lived in France, "among them 300,000 to 330,000 Jews. "This Jewish community was diverse. "90,000 were well established in France "for many generations and the rest were emigres "from a variety of European countries.” Yeah, I think either Trudy has spoken to you about Jews in the Second World War in France, or will be speaking to you.
Martin says, how much, yeah, Britain received more than France. It received about $5 billion more. Monty, that’s worth repeating.
“I love the anecdote Patrick told yesterday "about the nightclubs that were charged with collaboration "who said she did not realise she entertained "German soldiers because she was shortsighted.” Oh dear, dear, dear, that’s, I’ve got to find it now. I’ve lost, that’s very, very good.
Q: “How are the Francophiles currently dealing "with multiculturalism?”
A: Well, Romaine, that’s difficult to answer in a broad answer. The truth of the matter is, I think the truth is not as well as Britain. We are terribly self flagellating. We beat ourselves about over the question. But you just have to ask yourself why so many people are trying to leave France in very dangerous conditions to come to Britain, refugees. There, France has many more problems than we do in Britain.
Oh, Michael. Oh, Michael! “Britain leaving the EU probably "hasn’t weakened it very much "because it already was very weak. "The southern states in it have financial problems "and won’t agree to their paymaster.
"Germany’s ideas and many of the Eastern members "are neo fascists.” Yes, there are distinct problems within the EU and not least a problem of neo fascism. And not only in the East, there’s neo fascism in both France and Germany, which is deeply worrying as well as in the East. And the southern states do have financial problems. A lot of it caused by bluntly fraud in places like Greece and Italy. And it won’t be helped if Ukraine joins in either.
Marion says, “It seems that the French are forever "losing wars.” Don’t say that if you’re in France, for goodness sake. And don’t say it in English, say it in French, if you’ve got to say it.
Hilton says, “Thanks for enduring the back pain. "De Gaulle might have been a brilliant leader, "but for little me, he was an egocentric arrogant prick.” Yes, but you’re not French. And I tried to explain, I don’t think he was egocentric in the sense it was for him. I think it was for France. I, yeah, his character is aloof, is a word that I would use.
Q: “Why did the French people not resist Germans "like the Russians instead of running away?”
A: Because France isn’t the size of Russia and it wasn’t possible in Russia. Also, Russia was prepared to lose huge numbers of its population, which France was not. Remember when the Germans entered Paris, the French had left it, whereas in Russia, the Russians allowed the Germans to destroy large parts of Russia. Plus the fact that in Russia there, it’s a Marxist country which was ideologically opposed to nazism, to fascism. And that is, that was not the case with Russia, which had a ideology opposed to that of the Germans. And it was easier to, easier for the propaganda to work. Many of the French military leadership were proto fascists. And we can see that with the establishment of Vichy and Petain. There’s nothing like that in Russia. That’s a very short answer to a longer question.
Yeah, Nicholas, hi, Nicholas. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Whilst we have left the EU, there are other countries who express discomfort over right wing governments, Hungary, et cetera. That then raises the question, should Britain have stayed in to deal with that or come out? We don’t know what the outcome of that will be. I keep losing it, I’m getting overexcited tonight, I think. Let me go down. Nicholas was the last one. Let me see where Nicholas has gone. I wouldn’t want to argue with what you said, Nicholas, 'cause you’re accurate.
Q: David says, are there still French in Algeria?
A: No, 800,000 they estimated in broad terms, left when Algeria became independent leaving something like 200,000 in Algeria. I don’t have the latest figures from Algeria, but there are a lot of French people living there still.
“"The Battle of Algeria’s" a superb movie,“ says Jonathan, "and a must see to understand "the issues of the decolonization of Algeria.”
I think Natasha, I’ve answered your question as much as I can quickly.
Judy, “I heard Simone Veil’s talk on the anniversary "of the D-Day invasion. "German soldiers were included in the ceremony, "which I thought,” oh dear, my thing is, it’s me, I think, not the machine, it’s, I’m getting over excited, I’m going too quickly. I’m trying to get as much done as I can.
“I heard Simone talk on an anniversary of the D-Day event. "German soldiers were included in the ceremony, "which I thought was magnanimous. "She said the French were indifferent, "but the allies came from beyond the seas. "I read her memoir when I came back to Canada. "Wonderful woman. "Being head of the EU, she was responsible for allocating "funds for arts related to the Holocaust.” Yeah, she was an interesting lady and a lady that we could have a look at, if we are going to do biographies sometime. Absolutely, it’s that important.
“There is,” says Betty, “a story, perhaps apocryphal, "that a returning American vet who fought on detail "returning for a memorial, forgot his passport "or could not find it and the French customs official "told him he could not enter the country without a passport. "The vet said the last time I was in France, "you French did not require a passport, "on June 6th, 1944.” Yes, I’ve heard that. I don’t know whether it’s apocryphal or not, but it’s a jolly good story.
Q: Oh, that’s a, Julian, that’s a really good question. Hi, Julian, hi. “I’m wondering how the French handled "the aftermath of the Suez Canal. "Was it experienced as the same kind of humiliation "as it was in Britain?”
A: No, it wasn’t. And the reason is the French had already done a deal before they went into Suez for money from the International Monetary Fund. The British had not. And Harold Macmillan as Chancellor of the Exchequer had to go cap in hand to try and get money. It was the financial, the French were, were far more organised over Suez than were the British. The British, the whole of the planning for it was, was typically British. It wasn’t a well organised operation from the British point of view politically. And it was from the French point of view. And thus the French were able, I think, to deal with it in a much, it became such an issue between the political parties in Britain.
I haven’t got the wording of the 1968, not, the wording of the referendums in '68. No, I haven’t got the wordings to those, I’m sorry.
John, “De Gaulle understood a massive Muslim immigration "would shake an unsettled French society. "France today remains completely uncertain "about the path to take with regards "to all that African immigration.” Yeah, well, that is a problem not only faced by France, but faced by Europe as a whole. In fact, immigration caused by economic reasons and by climate reasons is a question which is not being addressed. Interestingly, when Britain was still negotiating a better arrangement with the EU under Prime Minister Cameron, Cameron was suggesting ways that this immigration issue, which had become larger than life in Britain, could be addressed by the whole of the EU. And he was put in his place by Angela Merkel in Germany. But since then Germany has changed its position to much a position that Cameron had taken. And thus, oddly enough, Britain might have been able to stay in the EU had there been a change. The truth of the matter is no one knows how to deal with immigration. And we’ve seen nothing yet when climate change hits in a very substantial way, North Africa and the Sahel, how are we going to deal with it? We don’t know how we’re going to deal with it. We have no plans and we need plans. So if any of you in the States are thinking of standing to represent the Democrats or the Republicans, can you please have an answer to the problem of mass immigration across the globe? If any of you are hoping to replace Mr. Sunak or the opposition leader, Starmer, can you also have a plan? And if you’re in Canada, you should have a plan as well. And you are are seeing examples of climate change, not in terms of immigration, but in terms of the actual landscape of glaciers and so on in Canada. We need, we need answers that. Sorry, this is just something that’s a big thing with me. So you shouldn’t have got me going on that.
That’s nice of you, Howard, thank you.
Q: Carol, “Do you think the main difference between French "and British political history is they had 1789 "and Britain had the glorious revolution of 1688?”
A: Wow, that’s a difficult question, Carol, to answer. Our structure was very different. We had a revolution in the 1640s from which the monarchy never recovered the position. France went on having that monarchy until 1789. We did not, with the exception of James II, and that is a few years and doesn’t count. So we had a constitutional monarchy, a parliamentary monarchy from 1714 onwards. They never had it. And so they were scrabbling around finding a solution. We simply altered the balance between king and parliament. Now we’re faced with having to look at the question between parliament and the executive. That is the cabinet, which is much the same as the problem the Americans always had between the presidency and Congress. That raises huge problems about constitutions. And when EU was looking at constitutions, there was a fear that it would not be like an American constitution, which in effect is, those of you who attended the talks I gave, is British, it was written by Britons. The American constitution is British. It’s Anglo-American and it’s very different from the Napoleonic constitutions of Europe. And it doesn’t fit. And I don’t know what, but none of them are working well. We’ve got to, we’ve got to have some changes and I don’t know how we’re going to do that either.
Oh, I like that, user. I’m sure that’s not your first name or indeed your second name. “De Gaulle died of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.” You’re clearly a medic. “Refusing potentially lifesaving surgery "developed by a French surgeon a few years earlier.” Now I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.
“The Ukraine will need a Marshall Plan,” says Susan. It will. And thereby lies further problems.
Thanks for listening to this course. I’m amazed that some of you have kept coming for the whole course and I hope you’ve gained something out of it. I hope you might look at the book lists on the, on my blog site and that some of you might read some of the books and now with good evidence, find out why you thought I was wrong and why I was wrong in whatever I might have said. So do read, make your own minds up and just remember that history influences the present, history influences the present, and the present influences the future. So French history influences France today, and France today influences France in the future. The same applies to the continent of Europe as a whole.
I’m going to stop there and wish you all, I’m going to say goodnight 'cause it’s half past six nearly, here in Britain. And for the rest of you, enjoy the rest of your day.