ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a behavioral reading of this through Sartrean existentialism. De Gaulle's ontological understanding of France and nations in a wider sense may see the strain of existentialism that courses through his foreign policy. This implies that national history, national individualism, and national authenticity above all must be the starting point in any analysis of de Gaulle's foreign policy. In other words, the platform of national subjectivity must be the point from which embark, or, as Sartre once declared, 'that subjectivity must be the point of departure'. The chapter primarily uses specific Sartrean terminology that is present in existentialism is a humanism to explore de Gaulle's foreign policy in philosophic terms. These are: the other, abandonment, anguish, despair, and bad faith and authenticity, and while some of these are complex and rather technical terms that offer an explanation of these as encounter them.
