The release of a two-part summer blockbuster on General Charles de Gaulle’s fight to rally resistance to Nazi occupation is yet another sign that the once-divisive figure continues to fascinate the French public. And while his name risks being turned into an empty signifier of fading French glory on the lips of politicians of every stripe, his call for France to forge its own foreign policy – free of Washington’s dictates – may have found new relevance as Europe’s relationship with the US worsens.
When US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first met General Charles de Gaulle in Casablanca in 1943, he was unimpressed. Allied troops had seized French North Africa from Vichy forces, and Washington had its own plans for who would oversee the colonies until Paris could be delivered from Nazi hands. De Gaulle, the proud and prickly leader of the Free French, was not on Roosevelt’s list.
