1128 Ch. 27 Rebuilding Divided Europe
(Left) Winston Churchill giving his famous “V for Victory” sign. (Right) Charles
de Gaulle returns to France after the German occupation and the Vichy years.
returned to power in 1964 with the support of the trade unions, and
remained there until 1970.
In some ways, France emerged from World War II in better shape than it
had from World War I. And although industrial cities and ports had been
pounded by bombing raids—German in 1940 and Allied in the last years of
the war—the systematic devastation that had taken place in northern and
northeastern France during 1914-1918 had not been repeated, in part
because the French armies had collapsed so rapidly in 1940.
In the eighteen months that followed his triumphant march down the
Champs-Elysees to Paris’s town hall in August 1944, Charles de Gaulle ruled
virtually alone. In October 1945, the vast majority of French men and women
voted against a return to the political institutions of the Third Republic, iden
tified with France’s defeat five years earlier. This referendum was the first
election in which French women could vote after receiving the suffrage that
year. In the subsequent elections for the Constituent Assembly, the Commu
nist Party—whose contributions to the resistance had been essential—took
the greatest percentage of seats. They were followed by the Popular Republi
can Movement (MRP), a new center-right party built on de Gaulle’s reputa
tion and Catholic support. However, frustrated that the new regime would
