Quotes About De Gaulle

In 1945, Yvonne established an Anne de Gaulle Foundation for Down's syndrome children in a château bought for the purpose outside Paris, and, after his daughter's death in 1948, de Gaulle kept her framed photograph with him.

According to de Gaulle's account, Blum assured him of his interest in the soldier's ideas. 'But you fought against them,' his visitor observed. 'One changes one's point of view when one becomes head of the government,' came the reply.

France always had this balanced position that in so many conflicts was the voice of peace. I intend to maintain that. De Gaulle was pleading for a multipolar world.

One does not impose conditions on de Gaulle!

De Gaulle at his iciest had reproached Challe: "One does not impose conditions on de Gaulle!

Consulting de Gaulle whether he should be present at the flag-lowering ceremony or not, Fouchet after a pause of several seconds had been told simply: "Je crois que ça serait inutile....

The UN was his idea, not hers," Phil objected. "She worked for it after it was established, but he had the idea from even before the war. World peace, the rule of law, and the end of all the empires. It was amazing how hard he tweaked Churchill and de Gaulle on that. He wouldn't lift a finger to help them keep their old empires after the war.

The eight-year-long Algerian war was to bring down six French prime ministers, open the door to de Gaulle - and come close to destroying him, too. The war was the last of the grand-style colonial struggles, but, perhaps more to the point, it was also the first campaign in which poorly equipped Muslim mujahedin licked one of the top Western armies.

It seems extraordinary, but even on the eve of D-Day, four years after de Gaulle had set up the Free French in London, the leaders of both Britain and the United States felt such distrust of him. But they detested his French chauvinism and genuinely feared that he might try to turn France into an anti-Western Gaullist dictatorship after the war.

When France fell in 1940, De Gaulle was a temporary brigadier general.

He was entirely free of what De Gaulle called, in the kitchen Latin of Molière, paralysus respectus, the kind of awed rigidity that seemed to get hold of every Frenchman in the general's presence.

When de Gaulle and Bohlen met at the Elysee a few days after the coup the French leader spoke in harsh tones. You will be blamed for the deaths of Diem and Nhu, he told the American. You may do and say what you like; no one will believe you. It is you who will be held responsible.

On the third, when Lieutenant General Alexander M. Patch, commanding the U. S. Seventh Army, issued the orders for the withdrawal from Strasbourg, the French military governor of the city said he would not undertake such action without direct orders from De Gaulle.

De Gaulle choisit donc le progrès économique et social contre la grandeur impériale et la profondeur géostratégique ; la croissance contre la perspective caressée par un Debré d'une France de cent millions d'âmes ; les douceurs de la société de consommation à l'américaine contre les rigueurs d'une guérilla interminable

If I were to put a date on it, I would say that the French Revolution finally came to rest after almost exactly 180 years, on April 28, 1969, when President de Gaulle resigned in a huff and the Fifth Republic, which he had founded, sailed on without him without a tremor.

When I first arrived at the Matignon, my desire was to reconcile Parliament and De Gaulle. I had forgotten only two things. Parliament and De Gaulle.

Introduced by de Gaulle to protect France's 'vital interests', when there was a possibility that Britain would use it, the French wanted it abolished.

General de Gaulle, now head of the French government, had been invited to consult with the President; but instead the American Ambassador came on board and reported that le grand Charlie had made lame excuses. The truth was his dignité did not permit him to travel to see anybody. He hated Roosevelt almost as much as any Wall Street tycoon hated him

I was the little French boy who grew up hearing people talk of De Gaulle and the Resistance. France against the Nazis! Then when that boy grew up, he began to uncover things. We began to legitimately ask the question, 'What exactly did our parents do during the Occupation?' We discovered it was not the story they were telling us.

Only one deputy, one admiral, and one leading academic remain with the Free French in London, and de Gaulle notices that all of his earliest supporters are either Jews or Socialists. A man of mythic pride, de Gaulle is infuriated by his total dependence on the British.