Charles de Gaulle's tenure as the 18th president of France officially began on 8 January 1959. In 1958, during the Algerian War, he came out of retirement and was appointed President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) by President René Coty. He rewrote the Constitution of France and founded the Fifth Republic after approval by referendum. He was elected president later that year, a position to which he was re-elected in 1965 and held until his resignation on 28 April 1969.
When the war in Algeria threatened to bring the unstable Fourth Republic to collapse, the National Assembly brought him back to power during the May 1958 crisis. He founded the Fifth Republic with a strong presidency, and he was elected to continue in that role. 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. He restored cordial Franco-German relations to create a European counterweight between the Anglo-American and Soviet spheres of influence through the signing of the Élysée Treaty on 22 January 1963.
De Gaulle opposed any development of a supranational Europe, favouring Europe as a continent of sovereign nations. De Gaulle openly criticised the United States intervention in Vietnam. In his later years, his support for the slogan "Vive le Québec libre" and his two vetoes of Britain's entry into the European Economic Community generated considerable controversy in both North America and Europe. Although reelected to the presidency in 1965, he faced widespread protests by students and workers in May 1968, but had the Army's support and won an election with an increased majority in the National Assembly. De Gaulle resigned in 1969 after losing a referendum in which he proposed more decentralisation.
Founding of the Fifth Republic
The French Fourth Republic had suffered from a lack of political consensus, a weak executive, and governments forming and falling in quick succession since 1946. With no party or coalition able to sustain a parliamentary majority, prime ministers found themselves unable to risk their political position with unpopular reforms.Philip M. Williams, Crisis and Compromise: Politics in the Fourth Republic (1958) The republic began to collapse during the Algerian War, and especially after the May 1958 crisis, wherein elements of the French Armed Forces staged a coup d'état in French Algeria and demanded that Charles de Gaulle return to power, leading to fears that France as a whole would descend into civil war. President René Coty publicly asked de Gaulle to help reform France's institutions. De Gaulle accepted, under the precondition that a new constitution would be introduced to create a powerful presidency in which a sole executive, the first of which was to be himself, ruled for seven-year periods. Another condition was that he be granted extraordinary powers for a period of six months. De Gaulle's newly formed cabinet was approved by the National Assembly on 1 June 1958, by 329 votes against 224, while he was granted the power to govern by ordinances for a six-month period, as well as the task to draft a new Constitution.
1958 indirect French presidential election
In the November 1958 legislative election, Charles de Gaulle and his supporters won a comfortable majority. On 21 December, he was elected President of France by the electoral college with 78% of the vote; he was inaugurated in January 1959. As head of state, he also became, ex officio, the Co-Prince of Andorra.
Algerian War
Upon becoming president, de Gaulle was faced with the urgent task of finding a way to bring to an end the bloody and divisive war in Algeria.Charles Sowerwine, France since 1870: Culture, Society and the Making of the Republic (2009) pp. 296–316 His intentions were obscure. He had immediately visited Algeria and declared, —'I have understood you', and each competing interest had wished to believe it was them that he had understood. The settlers assumed he supported them and would be stunned when he did not. In Paris, the left wanted independence for Algeria. Although the military's near coup had contributed to his return to power, de Gaulle soon ordered all officers to quit the rebellious Committees of Public Safety. Such actions greatly angered the pieds-noirs and their military supporters.Alexander Harrison, Challenging De Gaulle: The OAS and the Counterrevolution in Algeria, 1954–1962 (Praeger, 1989).
He faced uprisings in Algeria by the pied-noirs and the French armed forces. On assuming the prime minister role in June 1958, he immediately went to Algeria, and neutralised the army there, with its 600,000 soldiers. The Algiers Committee of Public Safety was loud in its demands on behalf of the settlers, but de Gaulle made more visits and sidestepped them. For the long term he devised a plan to modernize Algeria's traditional economy, deescalated the war, and offered Algeria self-determination in 1959. A pied-noir revolt in 1960 failed, and another attempted coup failed in April 1961. French voters approved his course in a 1961 referendum on Algerian self-determination. De Gaulle arranged a cease-fire in Algeria with the March 1962 Evian Accords, legitimated by another referendum a month later. It gave victory to the FLN, which came to power and declared independence. The long crisis was over.Martin Evans, Algeria: France's Undeclared War (2012) excerpt and text search
Although the Algerian issue was settled, Prime Minister Michel Debré resigned over the final settlement and was replaced with Georges Pompidou on 14 April 1962. France recognised Algerian independence on 3 July 1962, and a blanket amnesty law was belatedly voted in 1968, covering all crimes committed by the French army during the war. In just a few months in 1962, 900,000 Pied-Noirs left the country. After 5 July, the exodus accelerated in the wake of the French deaths during the Oran massacre of 1962.
With the conclusion of the Algerian War, de Gaulle was now able to seek his two main objectives: the reform and development of the French economy, and the promotion of an independent foreign policy and a strong presence on the international stage. This was named by foreign observers the "politics of grandeur" (politique de grandeur).
Assassination attempts
De Gaulle was targeted for death by the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), in retaliation for his Algerian initiatives. Several assassination attempts were made on him; the most famous occurred on 22 August 1962, when he and his wife narrowly escaped from an organized machine gun ambush on their Citroën DS limousine. De Gaulle commented "Ils tirent comme des cochons" ("They shoot like pigs"). The attack was arranged by Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry at Petit-Clamart.Bastien-Thiry was later executed by firing squad on 11 March 1963, the last execution done by this method in France.
It is claimed that there were at least 30 assassination attempts against de Gaulle throughout his lifetime.
Economic policy
In the immediate post-war years France was in poor shape; wages remained at around half prewar levels, the winter of 1946–1947 did extensive damage to crops, leading to a reduction in the bread ration, hunger and disease remained rife and the black market continued to flourish.Macksey, Kenneth (1966) Purnell's History of the Second World War: No. 123. "The Liberation of Paris" After 1948, things began to improve dramatically with the introduction of Marshall Aid—large scale American financial assistance given to help rebuild European economies and infrastructure. This laid the foundations of a meticulously planned program of investments in energy, transport and heavy industry, overseen by the government of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou.
De Gaulle oversaw tough economic measures to revitalise the country, including the issuing of a new franc (worth 100 old francs). Less than a year after taking office, he was confronted with national tragedy, after the Malpasset Dam in Var collapsed in early December, killing over 400 in floods. Internationally, he rebuffed both the United States and the Soviet Union, pushing for an independent France with its own nuclear weapons and strongly encouraged a "Free Europe", believing that a confederation of all European nations would restore the past glories of the great European empires.
Aided by these projects, the French economy recorded growth rates unrivalled since the 19th century. In 1964, for the first time in nearly 100 yearsFrance's GDP was slightly higher than the UK's at the beginning of the 19th century, with the UK surpassing France around 1870. See e.g., France's GDP overtook that of the United Kingdom for a time. This period is still remembered in France with some nostalgia as the peak of the Trente Glorieuses ("Thirty Glorious Years" of economic growth between 1945 and 1974).
In 1967, de Gaulle decreed a law that obliged all firms over certain sizes to distribute a small portion of their profits to their employees. By 1974, as a result of this measure, French employees received an average of 700 francs per head, equivalent to 3.2% of their salary.The New France: A Society in Transition 1945–1977 (Third Edition) by John Ardagh
Nuclear weapons programme
As early as April 1954 while out of power, de Gaulle argued that France must have its own nuclear arsenal as nuclear weapons were seen as a national status symbol and a way of maintaining international prestige with a place at the 'top table' of the United Nations. Full-scale research began again in late 1954 when Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France authorized a plan to develop the atomic bomb; large deposits of uranium had been discovered near Limoges in central France, providing the researchers with an unrestricted supply of nuclear fuel. France's independent Force de Frappe (strike force) came into being soon after de Gaulle's election with his authorization for the first nuclear test.
With the cancellation of Blue Streak, the US agreed to supply Britain with its Skybolt and later Polaris weapons systems, and in 1958, the two nations signed the Mutual Defence Agreement forging close links which have seen the US and UK cooperate on nuclear security matters ever since. Although at the time it was still a full member of NATO, France proceeded to develop its own independent nuclear technologies—this would enable it to become a partner in any reprisals and would give it a voice in matters of atomic control.
After six years of effort, on 13 February 1960, France became the world's fourth nuclear power when a high-powered nuclear device was exploded in the Sahara some 700 miles south-south-west of Algiers. In August 1963, France decided against signing the Partial Test Ban Treaty designed to slow the arms race because it would have prohibited it from testing nuclear weapons above ground. France continued to carry out tests at the Algerian site until 1966, under an agreement with the newly independent Algeria. France's testing program then moved to the Mururoa and Fangataufa Atolls in the South Pacific.