the creation of the European Common Market
and Franco-German reconciliation. Yet, little
more than a year after the signature of the Treaty
of Rome, the Fourth Republic came to an igno-
minious end as General de Gaulle returned to
power on his own terms. The general had no time
for Monnet’s visions of supranationalism. The
European institutions were not to be permitted
to override national decision-making; they were,
in de Gaulle’s view, to act as no more than forums
where national differences could be discussed and
negotiated.
By 1958 the majority of French people per-
ceived that the rivalries of the political parties in
the National Assembly had made active govern-
ment on many of the crucial problems facing
France virtually impossible. The achievements –
the Common Market, reconciliation with West
Germany, security through NATO – were easily
overlooked as their benefits became apparent only
later. It was de Gaulle who was to be credited
with the rising prosperity and modernisation of
France. High inflation from 1947 to 1951, when
retail prices more than doubled, followed by three
years of greater stability (1953 to 1955) and a
resumption of inflation proved very unsettling,
even though wages and salaries kept abreast. The
harsh economic measures introduced in the
autumn of 1957, higher taxes and devaluation to
reduce inflation, once again hit the pockets of
French families. Constant strikes, some for the
most trivial reasons, were one symptom of the dis-
content and general malaise. But the final blow
was the government’s inability to deal with the
crisis in Algeria, where a military takeover raised
a near panic in Paris at the prospect that
the whole country might fall victim to a military
dictatorship.
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