Charles de Gaulle

Soldier and the Appeal of 18 June (1890–1944)

Charles de Gaulle was born in Lille on 22 November 1890. According to the presidential biography on the Élysée website, he entered the Saint-Cyr military academy in 1908 and joined the 33rd Infantry Regiment at Arras in 1912; wounded several times in the First World War, he was captured in March 1916 and made five unsuccessful attempts to escape. Between the wars he advocated a doctrine based on an armoured corps; in 1939 he commanded the 507th Tank Regiment at Metz as a colonel, and on 25 May 1940 he was made a brigadier general on a temporary basis.

On 6 June 1940 Prime Minister Paul Reynaud appointed him under-secretary of state for national defence and war. On the eve of France's defeat he went to London, and on 18 June he broadcast on the BBC calling on French soldiers to continue the fight, founding and leading the Free French Forces; on 27 June Winston Churchill recognised him as leader of the Free French. He went on to form the French National Committee, the French Committee of National Liberation in 1943 and the Provisional Government of the French Republic in 1944.

Provisional Government, Withdrawal and the Fifth Republic (1944–1962)

On 9 September 1944 de Gaulle formed a government of national unity; on 20 January 1946 he resigned after disagreeing with the Constituent Assembly over the nature of the state. On 14 April 1947 he launched the Rally of the French People (RPF). After the Algiers uprising of 13 May 1958 President René Coty called on him; on 1 June he became President of the Council of Ministers with full powers and oversaw the drafting of a new constitution, approved by referendum on 28 September 1958 with 79.2 per cent voting yes, founding the Fifth Republic. On 21 December he was elected President of the Republic by an electoral college, taking office in January 1959. He offered a "peace of the brave" and then self-determination for Algeria; the Évian Accords of 22 March 1962 granted Algeria independence and ended the Algerian War.

Recognising the People's Republic of China (1963–1964)

China had regarded France's war in Algeria as an obstacle to diplomatic relations. In 1963 de Gaulle asked former Prime Minister Edgar Faure to visit China in a private capacity, giving him a handwritten letter saying "I have complete confidence in everything you will say and hear"; the Chinese Foreign Ministry describes the letter as "in effect addressed to the Chinese leaders". Between late October and early November Faure held six rounds of talks with Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi in Beijing and Shanghai, and the Chinese side set out a plan for direct recognition in the "Main Points of Premier Zhou Enlai's Remarks". According to Ma Baofeng, a former counsellor in the Foreign Ministry's protocol department, de Gaulle approved the plan after hearing Faure's report on 29 November.

On 27 January 1964 the two governments simultaneously issued a joint communiqué establishing diplomatic relations, making France the first major Western country to recognise the People's Republic. At a press conference at the Élysée on 31 January de Gaulle explained that France "must be able to hear China directly", adding that the decision in no way implied approval of China's political system — France was "simply recognising the world as it is". The US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, had earlier told the Republic of China's ambassador that Washington regarded de Gaulle's move as "almost intolerable". According to Ma Baofeng, Chiang Kai-shek wrote to de Gaulle on 24 December 1963, and de Gaulle later sent Zinovi Pechkoff, his former ambassador in Chongqing, to Taipei to explain the French position; the Republic of China broke off relations with France on 10 February 1964.

Re-election and Resignation (1965–1969)

After the introduction of direct presidential elections, de Gaulle was re-elected in 1965, defeating François Mitterrand in the second round with 54.8 per cent of the vote. He progressively withdrew France from NATO's integrated military command, a process completed in 1966, while France remained a member of the Atlantic Alliance. In May 1968 student and worker protests shook French society; on 30 May he dissolved the National Assembly, and the ensuing elections returned a large pro-presidential majority. On 27 April 1969 a referendum on regionalisation and Senate reform was rejected by 52.4 per cent of voters, and, as he had pledged, he resigned the next day.

Death and Chinese Mourning (1970)

De Gaulle died on 9 November 1970 and was buried at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, with an official ceremony held at Notre-Dame de Paris. According to an article on the website of the CCP Institute of Party History and Literature (originally in Dangshi bocai, no. 1, 2024), Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Dong Biwu sent messages of condolence to Madame de Gaulle and to President Georges Pompidou, Mao calling de Gaulle "an indomitable fighter against fascist aggression and for the national independence of France"; Zhou, Dong, Li Xiannian, Guo Moruo and others paid their respects at the French embassy in Beijing, and flags at Tiananmen and the Foreign Ministry flew at half-mast. The article says that visiting China had been a long-held wish of de Gaulle's, cut short by his sudden death. Xinhua has called him "the founder of Franco-Chinese relations".

Scholarship and Assessment

Western scholars generally interpret de Gaulle's recognition of Beijing within his overall Cold War strategy. Garret Martin (2008), drawing on newly opened archives, argues that while domestic political considerations played a part, de Gaulle was above all determined to make France a global actor able to "chart a middle course" between the United States and the Soviet Union. Angela Romano (2017), working mainly from French archives, contends that from the mid-1950s successive French governments had used commercial diplomacy to open unofficial channels and quietly prepare the ground for recognition, a process driven by European competition for access to Beijing, concern over China's appeal to developing countries, early readings of Sino-Soviet rivalry and dissatisfaction with American Cold War judgements.