- For years, the figure of General de Gaulle has been put to all sources by political figures in need of stature, on the right but not only.
- It is logical: fifty years after his death, the character, so polarizing at the end of his presidential mandate, has become more consensual.
- And then we do not replace a "providential man" like that, especially when he has created institutions that almost ask to blend into the mold he has defined. Not easy in peacetime.
In 2020, it always seems fashionable for a President of the Republic or a candidate for the post to follow in the footsteps of General de Gaulle. This June 18, 2020, which marks the 80th anniversary of the London Call to Resistance, is obviously a good opportunity. Emmanuel Macron is in London, Marine Le Pen was on the island of Sein, but they are not the only personalities to claim to be Charles de Gaulle, the man who saved the Republic twice. Not a small CV, of course, but why such persistence, half a century after his death?
Fifty years is a long time. This is largely the time it takes for the image of a prominent political figure, very polarizing in its time, to become more consensual. "The generations most opposed to the general have been pushed back," explains 20 minutes the lecturer in political science at the University of Montpellier, Emmanuelle Reungoat. She takes the example of the National Front, which has become the National Rally. The far-right party, founded by anti-Gaullists, with Jean-Marie Le Pen at its head says today at the head of the general's fighting. “Marine Le Pen, with Florian Philippot, completely reversed his party's strategy. "
"A fairly elastic set of ideas"
Obviously nonsense for the essayist and political scientist Gaël Brustier, who also notes that almost everyone has taken over de Gaulle in the French political field. "We talk about it a lot but we also talk a lot of nonsense. It doesn't demonetize him, but I'm not sure they're all level. However, what facilitates these all-round recoveries is also a certain ideological malleability of Gaullism which, for Emmanuelle Reungoat, is, moreover, more a "set of fairly elastic ideas than an ideology".
As proof of this, the use made of it by Jacques Chirac during his career: "Jacques Chirac was able to mobilize de Gaulle in very Eurosceptic positions, like his appeal from Cochin in 1979, then after in a very pro-European at the time of Maastricht, in 1992, for example. And he had every legitimacy to do so because de Gaulle is both someone who had firm positions on the sovereignty of France but who also built Europe from 1958. "
For outsiders and heads of state
European integration: for the past thirty years and the appearance of a strong Euroscepticism with the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty, it is often on this subject that the figure of the general has been used in public debate. "In the 1990s, we have several political parties of opponents who will put themselves without the wake of General de Gaulle: Philippe de Villiers a little but especially Charles Pasqua, Philippe Séguin and later Nicolas Dupont-Aignan," recalls Emmanuelle Reungoat. Charles Pasqua will even take the acronym of RPF, the first Gaullist party. “The figure of the general is still very legitimate and therefore outsiders are used, those who launch small, competing political enterprises. "
Outsiders, who will remain so, but not only. Chirac, therefore, but also Sarkozy, a little Hollande and a lot Emmanuel Macron (the memories of General de Gaulle are in a good place on his official photo), the last presidents, refer to it quite often. Like a “nostalgia for the presumed greatness of France in the 1960s”, judge Emmanuelle Reungoat . "His ten years of presidency correspond to years when France is modernizing at high speed and where many big projects like the TGV are born," recalls Gaël Brustier. Economically, it is full employment. Even if he has of course benefited from good economic conditions, this is also why he still dominates political life ”.
Circumstances
And then it is especially the founder of the Fifth Republic, the first head of state of this new regime, in 1958, which gives great weight to the executive and, over the years, to the President of the Republic very simple thanks to its election by direct universal suffrage. "The very occupation of this function of President of the Republic means that we inevitably turn around from Charles de Gaulle," thinks Emmanuel Reungoat. De Gaulle is the fantasy of the providential man, and the Fifth Republic institutionalizes this place. "
Except that you don't find it on every street corner. For Gaël Brustier, moreover, there was only one other in France in the 20th century: Georges Clemenceau, who, it is perhaps not by chance, also led France during a world war. However, a guardian figure is born less from the intrinsic qualities of the character than from the circumstances of his time.
"Pasqua had said that without Hitler de Gaulle would have only written a little scrogneugneu readers' letters to Le Figaro . Circumstances make great men. Without the First World War, Clemenceau would certainly have chosen L'Aurore , but also and above all the fact that he had shot the demonstrators in the south of France in 1907. And it was the First World War which makes him go down in history like a giant. Like world wars - and it is fortunate - there are none every day, French political life should take place in the shadow of the great Charles for some time yet.
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- Emmanuel Macron
- Gaullism
- Charles de Gaulle