This work suggests another look at the accepted historical narrative of a contemporary France confronted with the omnipresence of General de Gaulle and his recognition as the prophet of the Fifth Republic... Read More
The coup of 1958 achieved a powerless, unstable regime, and entered France into a new era of modernity and political rationality. Yet there was nothing "fatal", in effect, in the fall of the Fourth Republic, nothing "natural" in relation to the power of General De Gaulle, and furthermore nothing “necessary” in the way the new Republic took shape.
How did the personalization of power, so contrary to the parliamentary practices of the Fourth Republic, become possible and practical in May 1958? How did the rallying cries that allowed, and legitimately so, the arrival of the Fifth Republic work?
It is difficult to write a history of contemporary France without being confronted by the omnipresence of Charles de Gaulle, and without recognizing the accuracy of his predictions?
Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme français