Free Republic

On March 7, 1966, General Charles De Gaulle, the French President, informed the United States government the all foreign troops must leave France. That was the end result of a number of agendas which began with the French desire to develop a self-determinate nuclear arsenal, remove France from what it considered an unequal partnership with the United Kingdom and the United States in NATO, and free it from being drawn into a conflict between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization members and members of the Warsaw Pact, should the Russian forces encroach on West Germany territory. France wished to be free...

The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle has conducted first combat operation against the ISIL targets in Syria. Warplanes from the French aircraft carrier "Charles de Gaulle" engaged in their first combat mission, striking Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq on Monday.

Winston Churchill and Charles De Gaulle were eerily similar political figures, said Hillsdale politics professor Will Morrisey at a recent Kirby Center lecture in Washington, D.C. Both had to rally their people and country to fight against the German, Russian and eventually Soviet threats facing them. And, both went about it in different ways. It all began with geopolitics, which Morrisey defined as “the realm of necessity,” which “can be the realm of liberty.” Morrisey defined liberty as the “relationship of reciprocity, shared rule” like a household’s parent-child relationship. Both France and the United Kingdom were liberty-focused governments and were...

Elmer Davis on CBS

Early evening and the two-star French general, wearing a uniform with leggings and polished boots, was heading in a taxi to the BBC's Broadcasting House headquarters in London. The previous day he had fled his country and flown to England as his government sought an armistice with the advancing German troops. In his hand was the typewritten final draft of the speech he was to broadcast after Winston Churchill offered him the chance to address the people of France while exiled in London.

The one thing that Gov Palin has not been short of since the election has been advice from Republicans and the media – stand for governor again in 2010, go for the Senate, go for POTUS 2012, wait until 2016, write a book, go into the media, give up politics and concentrate on her family – the options are endless.As an outside observer, however, it strikes me that she is intelligent enough and shrewd enough to make up her own mind. I think that maybe she has already decided on a course – I believe she is going de Gaulle.

Few may celebrate the half-century since Charles de Gaulle’s triumphs of 1958, says Robin Harris, but this realist genius understood that, in geopolitics, the nation-state was all Almost exactly half a century ago, on 1 June 1958, Charles de Gaulle became the last Prime Minister of the French Fourth Republic and immediately began the construction of the Fifth. The Fourth Republic, be it said, was not as bad as it was painted, not least by de Gaulle. The economy had grown, the communists were kept out, and France took the first steps to becoming a nuclear power. But the system...

In reviewing the career of French diplomat Jean-Bernard Mérimée, two key moments stand out. In June 1995, Mr. Mérimée, then France's ambassador to the U.N., announced he was largely satisfied with the progress Iraq had made on disarmament and wanted sanctions lifted sooner rather than later. And this week, a French investigative magistrate brought Mr. Mérimée in for questioning on an allegation that he took a bribe from Saddam in the form of 11 million barrels of oil. So now we know what French officialdom means by the word "multilateralism": One part involves speechifying about the need for international "consensus"...

With just one-fifth the population of the United States, France boasts the world's second largest contingent of diplomats, and its consulates and embassies number just eight fewer than the State Department's 260.[1] The French investment in its foreign ministry is likewise heavy and demonstrates the importance the French government places on French prestige and grandeur. Under President Jacques Chirac, French foreign policy has become increasingly assertive. Francois Heisbourg, director of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (Foundation for Strategic Research), summed up French foreign policy as "oppose just to exist."[2]  Such descriptions are not entirely fair, though. While Chirac inherited a French foreign...

De Gaulle's Tattered Legacy By Jim Hoagland Thursday, March 31, 2005; Page A19 Charles de Gaulle bequeathed the French two big ideas and the atomic bomb to see them through the sad national duty of surviving without him. The bomb is still there and probably always will be. The ideas may not be as resilient. They face severe challenge this spring. One idea was to form a superbly educated, merit-based political elite to revitalize the defeated and demoralized nation that emerged from World War II. The cream of the intellectual crop would be chosen by rigorous examinations, educated in prestigious...

Ah, the French. How to think of them? There is an easy default answer: kindly and gratefully. After all, they helped us in the Revolutionary War, gave us Alexis de Tocqueville and the Statue of Liberty, and to this day feel a keen republican spirit in harmony with America's own. Sure, we have had our spats. But when the chips are down, you can count on France to be on our side, more or less, and to supply some great wine if it is needed. ...Before 9/11, 77% of Americans held a favorable opinion of France. By March 2003, only...

Britons secretly kept in postwar French camps After the liberation De Gaulle's government held on to internees from many countries in officially closed centres to hide collaboration Jon Henley in Paris Monday October 4, 2004The Guardian The government of Charles de Gaulle held hundreds of foreigners, including at least three Britons, in an internment camp near Toulouse for up to four years after the second world war, according to secret documents. The papers, part of a cache of 12,000 photocopied illegally by an Austrian-born Jew, reveal the extent to which French officials collaborated with their fleeing Nazi occupiers even...

CANNES AND THE HYENAS’ FESTIVAL By: Jesús J. Chao 5/25/04 Michael Moore brought to their feet the adoring European elites with his accustomed diatribes, defamations and wild attacks against President Bush and the American traditions and values. The jubilant reaction of the privileged European and Hollywood elites in attendance to the Festival, says more about their own values than the alleged merits of Moore’s documentary. Accordingly, he received the longest standing ovation ever at the Cannes Festival, an spectacle bordering on collective hysteria. What makes it more loathsome, is that the French would be speaking German today if Americans had...

The pro-Saddam Hussein European manifestations of February 15th that brought millions into the streets of European capitals are the culmination of Charles de Gaulle’s political vision of a European destiny led by France. During World War II de Gaulle was the leader of French resistance against the Nazis, but his post-war anti-Americanism rallied many of his previous enemies. Hostility to America and antisemitism were strong in various French circles: the communists, the left, and particularly among the numerous politicians, civil servants, intellectuals and businessmen, who had willingly collaborated with the Germans. Those political currents had important links with the Arab-Muslim...

PBS has just been showing a two-hour documentary about the very difficult relationship between Churchill, Roosevelt and DeGaulle. While blame attaches to all three men, DeGaulle behaved so badly it's a wonder nobody just shot him. He was brilliant, cunning and a complete egomaniac.

Toogood Reports [Weekender, April 27, 2003; 12:01 a.m. EST]URL: http://ToogoodReports.com/ Immediately after the onset of the war on Iraq, our French "allies" decided — yet again — to punish us. Foreseeing the inevitable coalition victory, Pres. Jacques Chirac announced to the world, that the American and British "belligerents" had no right to administer postwar Iraq, or to profit from contracts rebuilding the country. According to Chirac, the French, on the other hand, who had for years illegally armed Saddam Hussein, and who had not sacrificed any blood or treasure to remove him from power, were uniquely deserving of such contracts....

Dear Lord, There's a young man far from home, called to serve his nation in time of war; sent to defend our freedom on some distant foreign shore. We pray You keep him safe, we pray You keep him strong, we pray You send him safely home ... for he's been away so long. There's a young woman far from home, serving her nation with pride. Her step is strong, her step is sure, there is courage in every stride. We pray You keep her safe, we pray You keep her strong, we pray You send her safely home...

What was America's true motive for rushing into war against Iraq? Will U.S. unilateralism be a force to shape a new world order? Was Japan right to have shown support for the United States despite the absence of endorsement from the Security Council? Former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who has been a driving force behind Japanese diplomacy for half a century, addressed these questions in a recent interview with Toru Hayano, an Asahi Shimbun senior columnist. Excerpts follow: Q: What did you think of U.S. President George W. Bush's speech on the day the Iraq war began? A: His true...

Death of a Double Dealer Admiral Jean Francois Darlan, leader of the armed forces of Vichy France, was assassinated in Algiers in 1942. When Anglo-American armies invaded North Africa in November 1942, the objectives of Operation Torch far exceeded merely clearing the region of operational Axis forces. Besides the crucial objectives of obtaining a jumping-off point for the later invasions of southern and western Europe, and establishing a secure base for the strategic bombing offensive, there was the matter of heading off any establishment of revolutionary leftist movements or governments that might prove a prickly postwar problem. With the international...

I heard a comment on the news yesterday and would like help in finding more info on this. Supposedly in the 50's, de Gaulle asked that US troops leave his country and one of our reps said something like, "should we take the soldiers buried at Normandy with us too?" Anyone know if that's true and have a link to the info related to this? Thanks