Charles de gaulle biography brewfest

He rewrote the Constitution of France and founded the Fifth Republic after approval by referendum. He was elected President of France later that year, a position he held until his resignation in Born in Lille , he was a decorated officer of the First World War , wounded several times and taken prisoner by the Germans. During the interwar period , he advocated mobile armoured divisions.

During the German invasion of May , he led an armoured division that counterattacked the invaders; he was then appointed Undersecretary for War. Refusing to accept his government's armistice with Germany , De Gaulle fled to England and exhorted the French to continue the fight in his Appeal of 18 June. He became head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic in June , the interim government of France following its liberation.

As early as , De Gaulle introduced a dirigiste economic policy, which included substantial state-directed control over a capitalist economy, which was followed by 30 years of unprecedented growth, known as the Trente Glorieuses.

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He resigned in , but continued to be politically active as founder of the Rally of the French People. He retired in the early s and wrote his War Memoirs , which quickly became a staple of modern French literature. When the Algerian War threatened to bring the unstable Fourth Republic to collapse, the National Assembly brought him back to power during the May crisis.

He managed to keep France together while taking steps to end the war, much to the anger of the Pieds-Noirs ethnic Europeans born in Algeria and the armed forces. He granted independence to Algeria and acted progressively towards other French colonies. In the context of the Cold War , De Gaulle initiated his "politics of grandeur", asserting that France as a major power should not rely on other countries, such as the United States, for its national security and prosperity.

To this end, he pursued a policy of "national independence" which led him to withdraw from NATO 's integrated military command and to launch an independent nuclear strike force that made France the world's fourth nuclear power. De Gaulle opposed any development of a supranational Europe , favouring Europe as a continent of sovereign nations.

Although reelected to the presidency in , he faced widespread protests by students and workers in May 68 but had the Army's support and won a snap election with an increased majority in the National Assembly.