In a 2020 interview, Jean-Luc Mélenchon found reasons to view Charles de Gaulle as a good militant for La France insoumise. In May 2024, Jordan Bardella, head of the Rassemblement national’s list for the European elections, cited the general to denounce the construction of a European defense. The President Emmanuel Macron regularly invokes the great man, whom he paid tribute to three times in 2020. Fifty-four years after De Gaulle’s death, and as June 18 marks the 84th anniversary of his call to resistance against the Nazis and the Vichy regime, many political parties claim his legacy, far beyond the center and the right. How can this be understood?
Pierre Manenti, a historian of the Fifth Republic, has authored several books on the general, including The Barons of Gaullism (Passés composés, 2024) and History of Social Gaullism (Perrin, 2021). In an interview with Le Monde, he believes that De Gaulle “remains a reference to a kind of past greatness,” and that his iconic status allows everyone, when considering his legacy, to see things from their perspective. Politicians of all stripes claim to be more or less occasionally from General de Gaulle. How can this be explained?
There are two phenomena at play. The first is that De Gaulle, who was a political figure, has become a historical object. As a result, he no longer belongs to a particular party but to all French people. This explains why the right, part of the far-right, but also part of the left, claim him today, more as a historical figure than for the political content of his words. The second phenomenon is that De Gaulle is a “synthesizing” figure: reference is often made to the interview he gave to Michel Droit in December 1965, during the presidential campaign, in which he said that France is not left, it is not right, it is all French people at once. By rising above partisan games, the political sedimentation of Gaullism over time has led everyone to try to reclaim part of the legacy, each seeing things their way.
This phenomenon allows, for example, the Rassemblement national, on the far right, to claim the general at times. It may be surprising that the heirs of a party that was built by opposing De Gaulle now claim him – even if parties evolve and change. As a historian, when I compare the discourse and values of some parties with what the message, ambition, and policies of General de Gaulle were, I am nevertheless outraged by the process of appropriation. I am obviously thinking of the far-right parties.
