Editing Charles de Gaulle (section)

== 1946–1958: Out of power ==
<!-- "A certain idea of France" redirects here. See MOS:HIDDENLINKADVICE. -->

[[File:Charles de Gaulle Quotation 2011.jpg|thumb|The statement of Charles de Gaulle in reference to World War II]]
De Gaulle suddenly dropped out of sight and returned to his home in [[Colombey-les-Deux-Églises|Colombey]] to write his war memoirs. De Gaulle had told [[Pierre Bertaux]] in 1944 that he planned to retire because "France may still one day need an image that is pure ... If [[Joan of Arc]] had married, she would no longer have been Joan of Arc".<ref name="cate196011">{{cite news | url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1960/11/charles-de-gaulle-the-last-romantic/306916/ | title=Charles de Gaulle: The Last Romantic | work=The Atlantic | date=November 1960 | access-date=2 August 2016 | author=Cate, Curtis | archive-date=11 August 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160811213344/http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1960/11/charles-de-gaulle-the-last-romantic/306916/ | url-status=live }}</ref> The famous opening paragraph of ''Mémoires de guerre'' begins by declaring, "All my life, I have had a certain idea of France (''une certaine idée de la France'')",<ref>{{cite book|last1=Fenby|first1=Jonathan|title=The General: Charles De Gaulle And The France He Saved|date=2010|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|isbn=978-1-84737-392-2|url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8467526-the-general|access-date=19 November 2017|quote=De Gaulle did not invent the phrase; it was used by the writer [[Maurice Barrès]] in ''Mes Cahiers'' (1920)|archive-date=28 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180828102405/https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8467526-the-general|url-status=live}}</ref>{{RP|2}} and ends by declaring that, given the divisive nature of French politics, France cannot truly live up to this ideal without a policy of "grandeur". During this period of formal retirement, however, de Gaulle maintained regular contact with past political lieutenants, including sympathizers involved in political developments in French Algeria, becoming "perhaps the best-informed man in France".{{r|time19590105}}

In April 1947, de Gaulle made a renewed attempt to transform the political scene by creating a ''[[Rassemblement du Peuple Français]]'' (Rally of the French People, ''RPF''), which he hoped would be able to move above the party squabbles of the parliamentary system. Despite the new party's taking 40 percent of the vote in local elections and 121 seats in 1951, lacking its own press and access to television, its support ebbed. In May 1953, he withdrew again from active politics,{{r|time19590105}} though the ''RPF'' lingered until September 1955.<ref name="Grolier">{{cite web|url=http://www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_degaulle.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050223083920/http://www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_degaulle.html|archive-date=23 February 2005|title=Charles de Gaulle|work=Grolier Online}}</ref>

As with all colonial powers France began to lose its overseas possessions amid the surge of nationalism. [[French Indochina]] (now Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), colonised by France during the mid-19th century, had been lost to the Japanese after the defeat of 1940. De Gaulle had intended to hold on to France's Indochina colony, ordering the parachuting of French agents and arms into Indochina in late 1944 and early 1945 with orders to attack the Japanese as American troops hit the beaches.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Karnow |first=Stanley |year=1983 |title=Vietnam: A History |location=New York |publisher=The Viking Press |pages=143–4 |isbn=9780670746040 |oclc=779626081}}</ref> Although de Gaulle had moved quickly to consolidate French control of the territory during his brief first tenure as president in the 1940s, the communist [[Vietminh]] under [[Ho Chi Minh]] began a determined campaign for independence from 1946. The French fought a bitter seven-year war (the [[First Indochina War]]) to hold on to Indochina. It was largely funded by the United States and grew increasingly unpopular, especially after the stunning defeat at the [[Battle of Dien Bien Phu]] in May 1954. France pulled out that summer under Prime Minister [[Pierre Mendès France]].

The independence of Morocco and Tunisia was arranged by Mendès France and proclaimed in March 1956. Meanwhile, in Algeria some 350,000 French troops were fighting 150,000 combatants of the Algerian Liberation Movement (FLN). Within a few years, the Algerian war of independence reached a summit in terms of savagery and bloodshed and threatened to spill into metropolitan France itself.

Between 1946 and 1958 the Fourth Republic had 24 separate ministries. Frustrated by the endless divisiveness, de Gaulle famously asked, "How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?"<ref>''Time'', 16 March 1962</ref>

=== 1958: Collapse of the Fourth Republic ===
{{Further|May 1958 crisis}}
[[File:Charles-DeGaulle-TIME-1959.jpg|thumb|1958 ''[[Time Man of the Year]]'' cover (portrait by [[Bernard Buffet]])]]

The [[French Fourth Republic|Fourth Republic]] was wracked by political instability, failures in [[French Indochina|Indochina]], and inability to resolve the [[Algerian War of Independence|Algerian question]].<ref>Charles Sowerwine, France since 1870: Culture, Society and the Making of the Republic (2009) ch 20–21</ref><ref>Martin S. Alexander and John FV Keiger, eds. ''France and the Algerian War, 1954–1962: Strategy, Operations and Diplomacy'' (Routledge, 2013)<!--ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref>

On 13 May 1958, [[Pied-Noir]] settlers seized the government buildings in Algiers, attacking what they saw as French government weakness in prosecuting the war against the [[National Liberation Front (Algeria)|FLN]]. A "Committee of Civil and Army Public Security" was created under the presidency of General [[Jacques Massu]], a Gaullist sympathiser. General [[Raoul Salan]], Commander-in-Chief in Algeria, announced on radio that he was assuming provisional power, and appealed for confidence in himself.<ref>Alexander, and Keiger, eds. ''France and the Algerian War, 1954–1962: Strategy, Operations and Diplomacy'' (2013)</ref>

At a 19 May press conference, de Gaulle asserted that he was at the disposal of the country. As a journalist expressed the concerns of some who feared that he would violate civil liberties, de Gaulle retorted: "Have I ever done that? On the contrary, I have re-established them when they had disappeared. Who honestly believes that, at age 67, I would start a career as a dictator?"<ref>{{cite book|last=Alice L. Conklin|title=France and Its Empire Since 1870|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sFXwAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA281|year=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=281|display-authors=etal|isbn=978-0-19-938444-0|access-date=27 June 2015|archive-date=7 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150407040713/http://books.google.com/books?id=sFXwAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA281|url-status=live}}</ref> A constitutionalist by conviction, he maintained  that he would accept power only from the lawfully constituted authorities. De Gaulle did not wish to repeat the difficulty the Free French movement experienced in establishing legitimacy as the rightful government. He told an aide that the rebel generals "will not find de Gaulle in their baggage".{{r|time19590105}}

The crisis deepened as French paratroops from Algeria seized [[Corsica]] and a landing near Paris was discussed ([[Operation Resurrection]]).<ref>{{cite news|title=General Massu – Obituary|newspaper=[[The Times]]|date=29 October 2002|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article818845.ece|place=London, UK|access-date=27 December 2008|archive-date=14 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211214235852/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Political leaders on many sides agreed to support the General's return to power, except [[François Mitterrand]], [[Pierre Mendès France]], [[Alain Savary]], the [[Communist Party (France)|Communist Party]], and certain other leftists.

On 29 May the French President, [[René Coty]], told parliament that the nation was on the brink of civil war, so he was <blockquote>turning towards the most illustrious of Frenchmen, towards the man who, in the darkest years of our history, was our chief for the reconquest of freedom and who refused dictatorship in order to re-establish the Republic. I ask General de Gaulle to confer with the head of state and to examine with him what, in the framework of Republican legality, is necessary for the immediate formation of a government of national safety and what can be done, in a fairly short time, for a deep reform of our institutions.<ref>{{cite book|author=Jonathan Fenby|title=The General: Charles De Gaulle and the France He Saved|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qzVrCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA396|year=2013|page=396|publisher=Skyhorse Publishing |isbn=978-1-62087-805-7|access-date=29 November 2017|archive-date=19 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200219233127/https://books.google.com/books?id=qzVrCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA396|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote> De Gaulle accepted Coty's proposal under the precondition that a new constitution would be introduced creating a powerful presidency in which a sole executive, the first of which was to be himself, ruled for seven-year periods. Another condition was that he be granted [[state of emergency|extraordinary powers]] for a period of six months.<ref>{{cite book|author=W. Scott Haine|title=The History of France|publisher=Greenwood Press|url=https://archive.org/details/historyoffrance00hain|url-access=registration|year=2000|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyoffrance00hain/page/180 180]|isbn=978-0-313-30328-9}}</ref>

De Gaulle remained intent on replacing the weak constitution of the Fourth Republic. He is sometimes described as the author of the [[Constitution of France|new constitution]], as he commissioned it and was responsible for its overall framework. The actual drafter of the text was [[Michel Debré]] who wrote up de Gaulle's political ideas and guided the text through the enactment process. On 1 June 1958, de Gaulle became Prime Minister and was given emergency powers for six months by the [[National Assembly of France|National Assembly]],<ref>{{cite news|title=Gen de Gaulle given a majority of 105 – Full powers demanded for six months|newspaper=[[The Times]]|date=2 June 1958}}</ref> fulfilling his desire for parliamentary legitimacy.{{r|time19590105}}

De Gaulle's cabinet received strong support from right-wing parties, split support from left of center parties, and strong opposition from the Communist Party. In the vote on 1 June 1958, 329 votes were cast in favor and 224 against, out of 593 deputies.<ref>{{cite web |title=Assemblée nationale – Grands moments d'éloquence parlementaire – de Gaulle (1er juin 1958) |url=https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/de_gaulle.asp |access-date=28 April 2022 |website=www.assemblee-nationale.fr}}</ref> On 28 September 1958, a [[1958 French constitutional referendum|referendum]] took place and 82.6 percent of those who voted supported the new constitution and the creation of the [[French Fifth Republic|Fifth Republic]]. The [[French Colonial Empire|colonies]] (Algeria was officially a part of France, not a colony) were given the choice between immediate independence and the new constitution. All African colonies voted for the new constitution and the replacement of the [[French Union]] by the [[French Community]], except [[Guinea]], which became the first French African colony to gain independence and immediately lost all French assistance.<ref>{{cite news|title=Sweeping Vote for General de Gaulle – 4:1 Majority says "Yes" to new Constitution|newspaper=[[The Times]]|date=29 September 1958}}</ref>