ABSTRACT
Charles de Gaulle has entered into history. In France, he no longer is the subject of intense political debates but is instead claimed by and for all the parties (although, of course, by some more than others). Even the socialist François Mitterrand, an old enemy and the author of a rather undignified polemic against him called The Permanent Coup d’État, assumed the Gaul-list presidency, with all its quasi-monarchical prerogatives, with ease and self-assurance. In 1990 Mitterrand presided over the huge national commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of de Gaulle’s birth, the fiftieth anniversary of his appeal to resistance, and the twentieth anniversary of his death. “As General de Gaulle, he has entered the pantheon of great national heroes, where he ranks (according to a public opinion poll taken in 1990) ahead of Napoleon and behind only Charlemagne.” 1 The old disputes about de Gaulle’s person and motives, the fierce polemics centering around his claim to the special contract with France, one forged over the dark abyss of June 1940, the criticism of his alleged authoritarianism—all have given way to a “consensual mythology of General de Gaulle the national savior and liberator” 2 among the public, if not all the scholars and intellectuals.
