the discredited 80-year-old Marshal Pétain. With
the help of the BBC, de Gaulle had projected the
myth of an unconquerable France, and he himself
fitted the desired image. It was an extraordinary
feat, as he imbued the people with an inflexible
faith in France and in the recovery of its rightful
place as a world power, thereby relegating 1940
to no more than one defeat in battle that could
not alter France’s destiny. A gift for oratory
enabled de Gaulle to do for France what
Churchill had accomplished during the darkest
hours of the war for Britain. Politicians in France
of all shades of belief, accepted de Gaulle as indis-
pensable in the months immediately following the
expulsion of the Germans. On 26 August 1944,
in scenes preserved by the newsreel cameras, de
Gaulle strode through liberated Paris, with
snipers still firing from the rooftops. Even so,
largely because of American reluctance, the Allies
waited until October before granting full recog-
nition to de Gaulle’s provisional government.
In the resistance movement, the communists
were the largest and most disciplined element.
The socialists, as in Italy later, were divided on
the issue of whether or not to collaborate with
the Marxist communists in a broad-left front. The
president of the Resistance Council was Georges
Bidault, an anti-Marxist who identified with pro-
gressive Catholic aims; he headed a new party, the
Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP) which,
after the communists and socialists, formed the
third and smallest group in the resistance. But de
Gaulle deliberately stood aloof from party politics
in 1944 and 1945, refusing to lead any party of
his own; he claimed to speak for France above
parties. Yet, by stating as the aims of his policy
the restoration of national greatness and the polit-
ical, social and economic renovation of France, he
appealed to popular feelings on the left: liberation
from the Germans would go hand in hand with
reform. Big business, which had collaborated with
the Germans, and the conservative supporters of
Vichy, as well as all those who had done well
under German occupation, had to lie low polit-
ically. Until the eve of liberation, supporters of de
Gaulle represented only a minority of the French;
after liberation they were able to lay claim to the
government without opposition.
How did this come about? The communists
were on the spot, well armed and well organised.
They had worked with the non-communist resis-
tance under de Gaulle’s aegis, but would they
now capitalise on their strong position in the
country to seize power? Again, as in Italy, the
communists made no such bid to challenge de
Gaulle directly. Their leader, Maurice Thorez,
returned from Moscow in November 1944 and
gave his public approval to communist coopera-
tion with the other parties and their participa-
tion in a provisional government headed by de
Gaulle. The French communists, like the Italian,
had probably received their instructions from
Moscow. The Germans were not yet defeated and
it was in Russia’s interest to maintain Allied unity.
An open attempt by communists to take power
in a Western country might alienate Britain and
the US. Stalin even thought that such an event
could open the way to a change of alliances, the
Western Allies siding with Germany against
Russia – his ultimate fear. De Gaulle succeeded
therefore more easily than anyone expected. The
provisional government was able to establish its
authority over the whole country, with the com-
munists securing only the less important minister-
ial posts. The independent local committees and
militia were dissolved without resistance. For two
years, from 1944 to 1946, the communists par-
ticipated in governments with the socialists and
the MRP. Despite their strength, the communists
could not dominate French politics in succeeding
years and were excluded from government. De
Gaulle’s first period of office was short and ended
in 1946, but he had already made a permanent
impact on French politics.
During the first year de Gaulle had acted cau-
tiously at home. The obligatory trials of promi-
nent Vichy collaborators had taken place. The
Vichy prime minister Pierre Laval was sentenced
to death and executed, though Pétain’s death sen-
tence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Newsreels showed pictures of girls with heads
shaven as punishment for consorting with
Germans. Wild summary ‘justice’ was meted out
by the forces of liberation; this gave opportuni-
ties, too, for the simple settling of old scores. The
best estimate is that nearly 10,000 French were
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