The foreign policy of Charles de Gaulle covers the diplomacy of Charles de Gaulle as French leader 1940–1946 and 1959–1969, along with his followers and successors.
Free France (1940–1944)
Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his top aides Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, and Chief of the Imperial General Staff General Alan Brooke in 1940-41 moved quickly to establish a base for in London.Jonathan Fenby, The General: Charles De Gaulle and the France He Saved (2010) pp 30-38. Control of the overseas French Empire was seen as the central issue, and the British government was prepared to use military support to help regain control. De Gaulle set up a shadow government, including a French National Council and a Resistance movement inside both Vichy France and German-controlled France.Fenby, The General (2010) pp 204-218. To establish his own leadership over like-minded Frenchmen, de Gaulle began broadcasting to France using BBC facilities.Kay Chadwick, "Our enemy's enemy: Selling Britain to occupied France on the BBC French Service." Media History 21.4 (2015): 426-442. Online De Gaulle was especially keen to set up a Resistance movement inside France,Jonathan Fenby, The General: Charles De Gaulle and the France He Saved (2010) pp 169-175. However, many top British officials, as well as Roosevelt and sometimes even Churchill, still hoped for an understanding with Vichy France under Philippe Pétain. De Gaulle was totally opposed to any such relationship. Friction with Churchill's government continued to the end of 1942, centering around plans for the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa.Sir Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (1962) pp 91-123. On that matter the United States played the dominant role. Roosevelt continued to recognize the Vichy government, with Ambassador William D. Leahy in residence in Vichy. The embassy was finally closed when Germany seized control of Vichy France in late 1942.William L. Langer, Our Vichy gamble (1947).Simon Berthon, Allies at War: The Bitter Rivalry among Churchill, Roosevelt & de Gaulle (2001) pp 87-101.
In June 1941, British and Free French troops invaded Syria, then part of the Vichy overseas empire and used as a base by Nazi elements. Churchill decided to give Syria independence as a gesture to mollify Arab nationalism. De Gaulle strongly objected as he needed it for his base of operations in the Middle East. At one point Churchill was ready 108 to 11 to remove as head of the Free French. De Gaulle had no choice except to acquiesce to an independent Syria.Martin Mickelsen, Martin. "Another Fashoda: The Anglo-Free French Conflict over the Levant, May–September, 1941." Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire 63.230 (1976): 75-100 online.Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (1962) pp 108-111.Meir Zamir, "De Gaulle and the Question of Syria and Lebanon during the Second World War: Part I." Middle Eastern Studies 43.5 (2007): 675-708.
The command situation in North Africa was especially complex, with Roosevelt preferring François Darlan, The senior Vichy official who happened to be in command for Algeria when the invasion took place. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied commander on the spot recognized Darlan as commander of all French forces in the area and recognized his self-nomination as High Commissioner of France (head of civil government) for North and West Africa on 14 November. In return, on 10 November, Darlan ordered all French forces to join the Allies. His order was obeyed; not only in French North Africa, but also by the Vichy forces in French West Africa with its potentially useful facilities at Dakar.Arthur L. Funk, "Negotiating the'Deal with Darlan'." Journal of Contemporary History 8.2 (1973): 81-117. online After Darlan was assassinated in December 1942, Roosevelt preferred General Henri Giraud. Roosevelt had met with in Washington, but never hid his distrust and distaste. De Gaulle In turn never forgave the Americans for this humiliation.Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 1890-1944 (1990) 1:332-351.
Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944–1946)
Postwar planning
During the winter of 194445, there were a number of minor disagreements between the French and the other Allies. The British ambassador to France Duff Cooper said that de Gaulle seemed to seek out real or imagined insults to take offence at whatever possible. De Gaulle believed Britain and the US were intending to keep their armies in France after the war and were secretly working to take over its overseas possessions and to prevent it from regaining its political and economic strength. In late October he complained that the Allies were failing to adequately arm and equip the new French army and instructed Bidault to use the French veto at the European Council.
De Gaulle and the Free French were largely excluded from the postwar planning by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, and ignored by the U.S. State Department. It was humiliating for de Gaulle. The Americans and to a lesser extent the British distrusted 's usefulness and leadership of France. De Gaulle was not invited to summit meetings at Tehran, Yalta or Potsdam. At the Casablanca Conference on 24 January 1943, Giraud was present but at first refused but then accepted an invitation. Roosevelt and Churchill between themselves drafted an agreement on how liberated France would be governed. They agreed on a merger between Giraud's Algiers Imperial Council and 's London-based French National Committee. However Roosevelt's original draft called for General Giraud to be in charge. Churchill secured major changes that gave responsibility to the French National Committee under .Fenby, The General, pp 195-201. In 1945 France was given one of the five seats on the UN Security Council, with a veto, as well as a zone of Germany. Nevertheless, it was kept from actually taking a leadership role regarding the UN or Germany.Andrew Williams, "France and the Origins of the United Nations, 1944–1945: 'Si La France ne compte plus, qu'on nous le dise'." Diplomacy & Statecraft 28.2 (2017): 215-234. The French were angry at not being invited to Potsdam, but they did fairly well in the end.Julian Jackson, Charles de Gaulle (2003) p 39.
Confrontation in Syria and Lebanon On VE Day, there were also serious riots in French Tunisia. A dispute with Britain over control of Syria and Lebanon quickly developed into an unpleasant diplomatic incident that demonstrated France's weaknesses. In April, de Gaulle sent General Beynet to establish an air base in Syria and a naval base in Lebanon, provoking an outbreak of nationalism in which some French nationals were attacked and killed. On 20 May, French artillery and warplanes fired on demonstrators in Damascus. After several days, upwards of 800 Syrians lay dead.
Churchill's relationship with de Gaulle was now at rock bottom. In January he told a colleague that he believed that de Gaulle was "a great danger to peace and for Great Britain. After five years of experience, I am convinced that he is the worst enemy of France in her troubles ... he is one of the greatest dangers to European peace.... I am sure that in the long run no understanding will be reached with General de Gaulle".
On 31 May, Churchill told de Gaulle "immediately to order French troops to cease fire and withdraw to their barracks". British forces moved in and forced the French to withdraw from the city; they were then escorted and confined to barracks.Wall p. 33 With this political pressure added, the French ordered a ceasefire; De Gaulle raged but France was isolated and suffering a diplomatic humiliation. The secretary of the Arab League Edward Atiyah said, "France put all her cards and two rusty pistols on the table".TIME 25 June 1945 De Gaulle saw it as a heinous Anglo-Saxon conspiracy: he told the British ambassador Duff Cooper, "I recognise that we are not in a position to wage war against you, but you have betrayed France and betrayed the West. That cannot be forgotten".
French Indochina
At the Potsdam Conference in July, to which de Gaulle was not invited, a decision was made to divide Vietnam, which had been a French colony for over a hundred years, into British and Chinese spheres of influence.Robottom, John (1972) Modern Russia, McGraw-Hill Soon after the surrender of Japan in August 1945, de Gaulle sent the French Far East Expeditionary Corps to re-establish French sovereignty in French Indochina. However, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh independence movement, declared independence of Vietnam in September, and the First Indochina War broke out that lasted until France was defeated in 1954.Stein Tønnesson, The Vietnamese revolution of 1945: Roosevelt, Ho Chi Minh, and De Gaulle in a world at war (Sage, 1991).
Presidency (1959–1969)
Politics of Grandeur
Proclaiming that grandeur was the essential to the nature of France, initiated his "Politics of Grandeur". He demanded complete autonomy for France in world affairs, which meant that it has its major decisions which could not be forced upon it by NATO, the European Community or anyone else. De Gaulle pursued a policy of "national independence." He twice vetoed Britain's entry into the Common Market, fearing it might overshadow France in European affairs.Helen Parr, "Saving the Community: The French Response to Britain's Second EEC Application in 1967", Cold War History (2006) 6#4 pp 425–454 While not officially abandoning NATO, he withdrew from its military integrated command, fearing that the United States had too much control over NATO. He launched an independent nuclear development program that made France the fourth nuclear power.
French colonies
One of de Gaulle's geopolitical priorities was maintaining and further expanding French economic and political power in its former colonies. This was not only done through official diplomacy and through the SDECE, but also through bridge figures such as de Gaulle's close confidant Jacques Foccart. The latter built up a network of informal relations with authoritarian leaders (most notably Omar Bongo, Félix Houphouët-Boigny and Léopold Sédar Senghor) throughout French-speaking Africa.
Algeria
The May 1958 seizure of power in Algiers by French army units and French settlers opposed to concessions in the face of Arab nationalist insurrection ripped apart the unstable Fourth Republic. The National Assembly brought him back to power during the May 1958 crisis. De Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency, and he was elected in the latter role. He managed to keep France together while taking steps to end the war, much to the anger of the Pieds-Noirs (Frenchmen settled in Algeria) and the military; both previously had supported his return to power to maintain colonial rule. He granted independence to Algeria in 1962 and progressively to other French colonies.Winock, Michel. "De Gaulle and the Algerian Crisis 1958-1962." in Hugh Gough and John Home, eds., De Gaulle and Twentieth Century France (1994) pp 71-82.
French West Africa