1958–68: The Consolidation and Evolution of the Fifth Republic

Abstract

Between 1958 and 1962, de Gaulle moved from one matrix of support to another. In the case of the army and public opinion, he went from having particular elements support him for one set of reasons to others supporting him for a different set of reasons, arguably the opposite ones. He moved to and fro across support from the parties, the army, his own supporters, ‘opinion’, the electorates: legislative, presidential and referendary, Algérie Française, both in Algeria and in France, the trade unions, intellectuals, small town and village France with its local allegiances, the female vote, republican/legalistic opinion, eventually to a new configuration of sources of support. By 1962, he had almost got to the other side, as it were. As regards the parties, certain sections of the army, the media, the pieds-noirs, and some parts of fluctuating opinion, most of these had been ‘for’ him (for a range of reasons, and this is crucial). By 1962, all of them were now against him (for a range of reasons, and this is still crucial). It was certain, moreover, that the parties that had brought him to power to solve Algeria would, once it had been solved, try to, if not abandon him, then ‘domesticate’ his republic, bringing it much closer to a UK model (Debré’s preference), or a Fourth Republic with all the safeguards that figures like Coty, Mendès France, Faure, Mitterrand, Pflimlin and Defferre (and Vedel and Duverger and others) had striven for, largely in vain, in the months and years running up to May–June 1958.¹