ABSTRACT
At the moment of liberation France was without a legitimate government. The Vichy state to which the majority of the National Assembly had voted full powers in June 1940 had collapsed in the wake of the Allied victory. De Gaulle’s claim to legitimacy in forming his provisional government in June 1944 rested on him being the sole leader of the French Resistance-a movement to which he argued the majority of the French people subscribed. The composition of his government was without precedent in French history. It included communists for the first time ever as well as socialists, radicals, independents and representatives from a new centre-left Catholic party, the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP).
