title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Barely two months after forming the new government, de Gaulle abruptly resigned on 20 January 1946. The move was called "a bold and ultimately foolish political ploy", with de Gaulle hoping that as a war hero, he would be soon brought back as a more powerful executive by the French people. However, that did not turn out to be the case. With the war finally over, the initial period of crisis had passed. Although there were still shortages, particularly of bread, France was now on the road to recovery, and de Gaulle suddenly did not seem so indispensable. The Communist publication "Combat" wrote, "There was no cataclysm, and the empty plate didn't crack".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: After monopolizing French politics for six years, Charles de Gaulle suddenly dropped out of sight, and returned to his home to write his war memoirs. De Gaulle had told Pierre Bertaux in 1944 that he planned to retire because "France may still one day need an image that is pure ... If Joan of Arc had married, she would no longer have been Joan of Arc". The famous opening paragraph of "Mémoires de guerre" begins by declaring, "All my life, I have had a certain idea of France ("une certaine idée de la France")", comparing his country to an old painting of a Madonna, and ends by declaring that, given the divisive nature of French politics, France cannot truly live up to this ideal without a policy of "grandeur". During this period of formal retirement, however, de Gaulle maintained regular contact with past political lieutenants from wartime and "RPF" days, including sympathizers involved in political developments in French Algeria, becoming "perhaps the best-informed man in France".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In April 1947, de Gaulle made a renewed attempt to transform the political scene by creating a "Rassemblement du Peuple Français" (Rally of the French People, or "RPF"), which he hoped would be able to move above the familiar party squabbles of the parliamentary system. Despite the new party's taking 40 percent of the vote in local elections and 121 seats in 1951, lacking its own press and access to television, its support ebbed away. In May 1953, he withdrew again from active politics, though the "RPF" lingered until September 1955.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: As with all colonial powers France began to lose its overseas possessions amid the surge of nationalism. French Indochina (now Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), colonised by France during the mid-19th century, had been lost to the Japanese after the defeat of 1940. De Gaulle had intended to hold on to France's Indochina colony, ordering the parachuting of French agents and arms into Indochina in late 1944 and early 1945 with orders to attack the Japanese as American troops hit the beaches. Although de Gaulle had moved quickly to consolidate French control of the territory during his brief first tenure as president in the 1940s, the communist Vietminh under Ho Chi Minh began a determined campaign for independence from 1946 onwards. The French fought a bitter seven-year war (the First Indochina War) to hold on to Indochina. It was largely funded by the United States and grew increasingly unpopular, especially after the stunning defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. France pulled out that summer under Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The independence of Morocco and Tunisia was arranged by Mendès France and proclaimed in March 1956. Meanwhile, in Algeria some 350,000 French troops were fighting 150,000 combatants of the Algerian Liberation Movement (FLN). Within a few years, the Algerian war of independence reached a summit in terms of savagery and bloodshed and threatened to spill into metropolitan France itself.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Between 1946 and 1958 the Fourth Republic had 24 separate ministries. Frustrated by the endless divisiveness, de Gaulle famously asked "How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?"


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The Fourth Republic was wracked by political instability, failures in Indochina, and inability to resolve the Algerian question.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 13 May 1958, the Pied-Noir settlers seized the government buildings in Algiers, attacking what they saw as French government weakness in the face of demands among the Berber and Arab majority for Algerian independence. A "Committee of Civil and Army Public Security" was created under the presidency of General Jacques Massu, a Gaullist sympathiser. General Raoul Salan, Commander-in-Chief in Algeria, announced on radio that he was assuming provisional power, and appealed for confidence in himself.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: At a 19 May press conference, de Gaulle asserted again that he was at the disposal of the country. As a journalist expressed the concerns of some who feared that he would violate civil liberties, de Gaulle retorted vehemently: "Have I ever done that? On the contrary, I have re-established them when they had disappeared. Who honestly believes that, at age 67, I would start a career as a dictator?" A constitutionalist by conviction, he maintained throughout the crisis that he would accept power only from the lawfully constituted authorities. De Gaulle did not wish to repeat the difficulty the Free French movement experienced in establishing legitimacy as the rightful government. He told an aide that the rebel generals "will not find de Gaulle in their baggage".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The crisis deepened as French paratroops from Algeria seized Corsica and a landing near Paris was discussed (Operation Resurrection).


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Political leaders on many sides agreed to support the General's return to power, except François Mitterrand, Pierre Mendès France, Alain Savary, the Communist Party, and certain other leftists.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 29 May the French President, René Coty, told parliament that the nation was on the brink of civil war, so he was "turning towards the most illustrious of Frenchmen, towards the man who, in the darkest years of our history, was our chief for the reconquest of freedom and who refused dictatorship in order to re-establish the Republic. I ask General de Gaulle to confer with the head of state and to examine with him what, in the framework of Republican legality, is necessary for the immediate formation of a government of national safety and what can be done, in a fairly short time, for a deep reform of our institutions." De Gaulle accepted Coty's proposal under the precondition that a new constitution would be introduced creating a powerful presidency in which a sole executive, the first of which was to be himself, ruled for seven-year periods. Another condition was that he be granted extraordinary powers for a period of six months.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle remained intent on replacing the weak constitution of the Fourth Republic. He is sometimes described as the author of the new constitution, as he commissioned it and was responsible for its overall framework. The actual drafter of the text was Michel Debré who wrote up de Gaulle's political ideas and guided the text through the enactment process. On 1 June 1958, de Gaulle became Prime Minister and was given emergency powers for six months by the National Assembly, fulfilling his desire for parliamentary legitimacy.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's cabinet received strong support from right parties, split support from left of center parties, and strong opposition from the Communist Party. In the vote on 1 June 1958, 329 votes were cast in favor and 224 against, out of 593 deputies. The composition of the vote was as follows:


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Votes in favor: 42 out of 95 Socialists led by Guy Mollet, 24 out of 42 Radicals led by Felix Gaillard, 10 out of 20 UDSR deputies led by Rene Pleven, all 14 RGR deputies led by Edgar Faure, 70 out of 74 MRP deputies led by Georges Bidault, around 22 Social Republicans led by Jacques Chelmas-Delban, around 95 Independent-Peasants led by Antoine Pinay, and around 52 Poujadists.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Votes against: 141 Communists, 49 Socialists led by Gaston Deferre, 18 Radicals led by Pierre Mendes-France, and 4 UDSR deputies led by François Mitterrand.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 28 September 1958, a referendum took place and 82.6 percent of those who voted supported the new constitution and the creation of the Fifth Republic. The colonies (Algeria was officially a part of France, not a colony) were given the choice between immediate independence and the new constitution. All African colonies voted for the new constitution and the replacement of the French Union by the French Community, except Guinea, which thus became the first French African colony to gain independence and immediately lost all French assistance.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In the November 1958 election, Charles de Gaulle and his supporters (initially organised in the "Union pour la Nouvelle République-Union Démocratique du Travail", then the "Union des Démocrates pour la Vème République", later still the "Union des Démocrates pour la République", UDR) won a comfortable majority. On 21 December, he was elected President of France by the electoral college with 78% of the vote; he was inaugurated in January 1959. As head of state, he also became "ex officio" the Co-Prince of Andorra.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle oversaw tough economic measures to revitalise the country, including the issuing of a new franc (worth 100 old francs). Less than a year after taking office, he was confronted with national tragedy, after the Malpasset Dam in Var collapsed in early December, killing over 400 in floods. Internationally, he rebuffed both the United States and the Soviet Union, pushing for an independent France with its own nuclear weapons and strongly encouraged a "Free Europe", believing that a confederation of all European nations would restore the past glories of the great European empires.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: He set about building Franco-German cooperation as the cornerstone of the European Economic Community (EEC), paying the first state visit to Germany by a French head of state since Napoleon. In January 1963, Germany and France signed a treaty of friendship, the Élysée Treaty. France also reduced its dollar reserves, trading them for gold from the Federal government of the United States, thereby reducing American economic influence abroad.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: His expression, "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals", has often been cited throughout the history of European integration. It became, for the next ten years, a favourite political rallying cry of de Gaulle's. His vision stood in contrast to the Atlanticism of the United States and Britain, preferring instead a Europe that would act as a third pole between the United States and the Soviet Union. By including in his ideal of Europe all the territory up to the Urals, de Gaulle was implicitly offering détente to the Soviets.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: As the last chief of government of the Fourth Republic, de Gaulle made sure that the Treaty of Rome creating the European Economic Community was fully implemented, and that the British project of Free Trade Area was rejected, to the extent that he was sometimes considered as a "Father of Europe".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Upon becoming president, de Gaulle was faced with the urgent task of finding a way to bring to an end the bloody and divisive war in Algeria. His intentions were obscure. He had immediately visited Algeria and declared, "Je vous ai compris"—'I have understood you', and each competing interest had wished to believe it was them that he had understood. The settlers assumed he supported them, and would be stunned when he did not. In Paris, the left wanted independence for Algeria. Although the military's near-coup had contributed to his return to power, de Gaulle soon ordered all officers to quit the rebellious Committees of Public Safety. Such actions greatly angered the pieds-noirs and their military supporters.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: He faced uprisings in Algeria by the pied-noirs and the French armed forces. On assuming the prime minister role in June 1958 he immediately went to Algeria, and neutralised the army there, with its 600,000 soldiers. The Algiers Committee of Public Safety was loud in its demands on behalf of the settlers, but de Gaulle made more visits and sidestepped them. For the long term he devised a plan to modernize Algeria's traditional economy, deescalated the war, and offered Algeria self-determination in 1959. A pied-noir revolt in 1960 failed, and another attempted coup failed in April 1961. French voters approved his course in a 1961 referendum on Algerian self-determination. De Gaulle arranged a cease-fire in Algeria with the March 1962 Evian Accords, legitimated by another referendum a month later. It gave victory to the FLN, which came to power and declared independence. The long crisis was over.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Although the Algerian issue was settled, Prime Minister Michel Debré resigned over the final settlement and was replaced with Georges Pompidou on 14 April 1962. France recognised Algerian independence on 3 July 1962, and a blanket amnesty law was belatedly voted in 1968, covering all crimes committed by the French army during the war. In just a few months in 1962, 900,000 "Pied-Noirs" left the country. After 5 July, the exodus accelerated in the wake of the French deaths during the Oran massacre of 1962.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle was targeted for death by the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), in retaliation for his Algerian initiatives. Several assassination attempts were made on him; the most famous occurred on 22 August 1962, when he and his wife narrowly escaped from an organized machine gun ambush on their Citroën DS limousine. De Gaulle commented "Ils tirent comme des cochons" ("They shoot like pigs"). The attack was arranged by Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry at Petit-Clamart. Frederick Forsyth used this incident as a basis for his novel "The Day of the Jackal".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In September 1962, de Gaulle sought a constitutional amendment to allow the president to be directly elected by the people and issued another referendum to this end. After a motion of censure voted by the parliament on 4 October 1962, de Gaulle dissolved the National Assembly and held new elections. Although the left progressed, the Gaullists won an increased majority—this despite opposition from the Christian democratic Popular Republican Movement (MRP) and the National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP) who criticised de Gaulle's euroscepticism and presidentialism.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's proposal to change the election procedure for the French presidency was approved at the referendum on 28 October 1962 by more than three-fifths of voters despite a broad "coalition of no" formed by most of the parties, opposed to a presidential regime. Thereafter the president was to be elected by direct universal suffrage for the first time since Louis Napoleon in 1848.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: With the Algerian conflict behind him, de Gaulle was able to achieve his two main objectives, the reform and development of the French economy, and the promotion of an independent foreign policy and a strong presence on the international stage. This was named by foreign observers the "politics of grandeur" ("politique de grandeur"). See Gaullism.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In the immediate post-war years France was in poor shape; wages remained at around half prewar levels, the winter of 1946–1947 did extensive damage to crops, leading to a reduction in the bread ration, hunger and disease remained rife and the black market continued to flourish. Germany was in an even worse position, but after 1948 things began to improve dramatically with the introduction of Marshall Aid—large scale American financial assistance given to help rebuild European economies and infrastructure. This laid the foundations of a meticulously planned program of investments in energy, transport and heavy industry, overseen by the government of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In the context of a population boom unseen in France since the 18th century, the government intervened heavily in the economy, using "dirigisme"—a unique combination of free-market and state-directed economy—with indicative five-year plans as its main tool. This was followed by a rapid transformation and expansion of the French economy.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: High-profile projects, mostly but not always financially successful, were launched: the extension of Marseille's harbour (soon ranking third in Europe and first in the Mediterranean); the promotion of the Caravelle passenger jetliner (a predecessor of Airbus); the decision to start building the supersonic Franco-British Concorde airliner in Toulouse; the expansion of the French auto industry with state-owned Renault at its centre; and the building of the first motorways between Paris and the provinces.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Aided by these projects, the French economy recorded growth rates unrivalled since the 19th century. In 1964, for the first time in nearly 100 years France's GDP overtook that of the United Kingdom for a time. This period is still remembered in France with some nostalgia as the peak of the "Trente Glorieuses" ("Thirty Glorious Years" of economic growth between 1945 and 1974).


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In 1967, de Gaulle decreed a law that obliged all firms over certain sizes to distribute a small portion of their profits to their employees. By 1974, as a result of this measure, French employees received an average of 700 francs per head, equivalent to 3.2% of their salary.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: During his first tenure as president, de Gaulle became enthusiastic about the possibilities of nuclear power. France had carried out important work in the early development of atomic energy and in October 1945, he established the French Atomic Energy Commission Commissariat à l'énergie atomique, (CEA) responsible for all scientific, commercial, and military uses of nuclear energy. However, partly due to communist influences in government opposed to proliferation, research stalled and France was excluded from American, British and Canadian nuclear efforts.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: By October 1952, the United Kingdom had become the third country—after the United States and the Soviet Union—to independently test and develop nuclear weapons. This gave Britain the capability to launch a nuclear strike via its Vulcan bomber force and they began developing a ballistic missile program known as Blue Streak.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: As early as April 1954 while out of power, de Gaulle argued that France must have its own nuclear arsenal; at the time nuclear weapons were seen as a national status symbol and a way of maintaining international prestige with a place at the 'top table' of the United Nations. Full-scale research began again in late 1954 when Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France authorized a plan to develop the atomic bomb; large deposits of uranium had been discovered near Limoges in central France, providing the researchers with an unrestricted supply of nuclear fuel. France's independent Force de Frappe (strike force) came into being soon after de Gaulle's election with his authorization for the first nuclear test.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: With the cancellation of Blue Streak, the US agreed to supply Britain with its Skybolt and later Polaris weapons systems, and in 1958, the two nations signed the Mutual Defence Agreement forging close links which have seen the US and UK cooperate on nuclear security matters ever since. Although at the time it was still a full member of NATO, France proceeded to develop its own independent nuclear technologies—this would enable it to become a partner in any reprisals and would give it a voice in matters of atomic control.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: After six years of effort, on 13 February 1960, France became the world's fourth nuclear power when a high-powered nuclear device was exploded in the Sahara some 700 miles south-south-west of Algiers. In August 1963, France decided against signing the Partial Test Ban Treaty designed to slow the arms race because it would have prohibited it from testing nuclear weapons above ground. France continued to carry out tests at the Algerian site until 1966, under an agreement with the newly independent Algeria. France's testing program then moved to the Mururoa and Fangataufa Atolls in the South Pacific.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In November 1967, an article by the French Chief of the General Staff (but inspired by de Gaulle) in the "Revue de la Défense Nationale" caused international consternation. It was stated that the French nuclear force should be capable of firing "in all directions"—thus including even America as a potential target. This surprising statement was intended as a declaration of French national independence, and was in retaliation to a warning issued long ago by Dean Rusk that US missiles would be aimed at France if it attempted to employ atomic weapons outside an agreed plan. However, criticism of de Gaulle was growing over his tendency to act alone with little regard for the views of others. In August, concern over de Gaulle's policies had been voiced by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing when he queried 'the solitary exercise of power'.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: With the onset of the Cold War and the perceived threat of invasion from the Soviet Union and the countries of the eastern bloc, the United States, Canada and a number of western European countries set up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to co-ordinate a military response to any possible attack. France played a key role during the early days of the organisation, providing a large military contingent and agreeing—after much soul-searching—to the participation of West German forces. But after his election in 1958 Charles de Gaulle took the view that the organisation was too dominated by the US and UK, and that America would not fulfill its promise to defend Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle demanded political parity with Britain and America in NATO, and for its geographic coverage to be extended to include French territories abroad, including Algeria, then experiencing civil war. This was not forthcoming, and so in March 1959 France, citing the need for it to maintain its own independent military strategy, withdrew its Mediterranean Fleet (ALESCMED) from NATO, and a few months later de Gaulle demanded the removal of all US nuclear weapons from French territory.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle hosted a superpower summit on 17 May 1960 for arms limitation talks and détente efforts in the wake of the 1960 U-2 incident between United States President Dwight Eisenhower, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and United Kingdom Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. De Gaulle's warm relations with Eisenhower were noticed by United States military observers at that time. De Gaulle told Eisenhower: "Obviously you cannot apologize but you must decide how you wish to handle this. I will do everything I can to be helpful without being openly partisan." When Khrushchev condemned the United States U-2 flights, de Gaulle expressed to Khrushchev his disapproval of 18 near-simultaneous secret Soviet satellite overflights of French territory; Khrushchev denied knowledge of the satellite overflights. Lieutenant General Vernon A. Walters wrote that after Khrushchev left, "De Gaulle came over to Eisenhower and took him by the arm. He took me also by the elbow and, taking us a little apart, he said to Eisenhower, 'I do not know what Khrushchev is going to do, nor what is going to happen, but whatever he does, I want you to know that I am with you to the end.' I was astounded at this statement, and Eisenhower was clearly moved by his unexpected expression of unconditional support". General Walters was struck by de Gaulle's "unconditional support" of the United States during that "crucial time". De Gaulle then tried to revive the talks by inviting all the delegates to another conference at the Élysée Palace to discuss the situation, but the summit ultimately dissolved in the wake of the U-2 incident.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In 1964, de Gaulle visited the Soviet Union, where he hoped to establish France as an alternative influence in the Cold War. De Gaulle always viewed Communism as a passing phenomenon, and never used the term 'Soviet Union', always calling it Russia. In his view, Russian national interests rather than Communist ideology determined the decision-making in the Kremlin. Later, he proclaimed a new alliance between the nations, but although Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin later visited Paris, the Soviets clearly did not consider France a superpower and knew that they would remain dependent on the NATO alliance in the event of a war. In 1965, de Gaulle pulled France out of SEATO, the southeast Asian equivalent of NATO, and refused to participate in any future NATO maneuvers.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In February 1966, France withdrew from the NATO Military Command Structure, but remained within the organisation. De Gaulle, haunted by the memories of 1940, wanted France to remain the master of the decisions affecting it, unlike in the 1930s when it had to follow in step with its British ally. He also ordered all foreign military personnel to leave France within a year. This latter action was particularly badly received in the US, prompting Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State, to ask de Gaulle whether the removal of American military personnel was to include exhumation of the 50,000 American war dead buried in French cemeteries.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: France, experiencing the disintegration of its colonial empire and severe problems in Algeria, turned towards Europe after the Suez Crisis, and to West Germany in particular. In the years after, the economies of both nations integrated and they led the drive towards European unity.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: One of the conditions of Marshall Aid was that the nations' leaders must co-ordinate economic efforts and pool the supply of raw materials. By far the most critical commodities in driving growth were coal and steel. France assumed it would receive large amounts of high-quality German coal from the Ruhr as reparations for the war, but the US refused to allow this, fearing a repetition of the bitterness after the Treaty of Versailles which partly caused World War II.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Under the inspiration of the French statesmen Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, together with the German leader Konrad Adenauer, the rift between the two nations had begun to heal and in 1951, along with Italy and the Benelux countries, they formed the European Coal and Steel Community. Following the Treaty of Rome of 1957, this became the European Economic Community.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle had not been instrumental in setting up the new organization and, from the start, he opposed efforts by fellow EEC member countries to move toward some form of political integration that, in de Gaulle's thinking, would impinge on the sovereignty of France, both internally and externally. To counter those supranational tendencies that he disparaged, he put forward in 1961 the so-called Fouchet Plan that maintained all decision-making powers in the hands of governments, reducing the projected European parliamentary assembly to a mere consultative assembly. As expected, the plan was rejected by France's partners. In July 1965, de Gaulle provoked a major six-month crisis when he ordered the boycott of EEC institutions (see "Empty chair crisis" below) until his demands – the withdrawal of a European Commission proposal to reinforce the community institutions to the detriment of national sovereignty, and the acceptance of France's proposal regarding the financing of the newly established Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – were met with the Luxembourg compromise.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle, who in spite of recent history admired Germany and spoke excellent German, as well as English, established a good relationship with the aging West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer—culminating in the Elysee Treaty in 1963—and in the first few years of the Common Market, France's industrial exports to the other five members tripled and its farm export almost quadrupled. The franc became a solid, stable currency for the first time in half a century, and the economy mostly boomed. Adenauer however, all too aware of the importance of American support in Europe, gently distanced himself from the general's more extreme ideas, wanting no suggestion that any new European community would in any sense challenge or set itself at odds with the US. In Adenauer's eyes, the support of the US was more important than any question of European prestige. Adenauer was also anxious to reassure Britain that nothing was being done behind its back and was quick to inform British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of any new developments.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Great Britain initially declined to join the EEC, preferring to remain with another organisation known as the European Free Trade Area, mostly consisting of the northern European countries and Portugal. By the late 1950s, German and French living standards began to exceed those in Britain, and the government of Harold Macmillan, realising that the EEC was a stronger trade bloc than EFTA, began negotiations to join.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle vetoed the British application to join the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1963, famously uttering the single word 'non' into the television cameras at the critical moment, a statement used to sum up French opposition towards Britain for many years afterwards. Macmillan said afterwards that he always believed that de Gaulle would prevent Britain joining, but thought he would do it quietly, behind the scenes. He later complained privately that "all our plans are in tatters".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: American President John F. Kennedy urged de Gaulle to accept the United Kingdom in the EEC, stating that a Europe without Great Britain would create a situation in which the United States were bearing the enormous costs of Europe's protection without any voice. Kennedy applied pressure to de Gaulle by threatening to withdraw American troops from European soil, but de Gaulle believed that the United States would lose the Cold War if they were to leave Europe. It encouraged de Gaulle to see Great Britain as America's "Trojan Horse".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: British Prime Minister Churchill once said to him that if he had the choice between France and the United States, he would always choose the United States. Churchill's successor, Macmillan, prioritised the rebuilding of the Anglo-American "Special Relationship". With the American agreement to supply Britain with the Skybolt nuclear missile, de Gaulle thought that the United Kingdom would not go along with his vision for a West European strategically independent from the United States. He maintained there were incompatibilities between continental European and British economic interests. In addition, he demanded that the United Kingdom accept all the conditions laid down by the six existing members of the EEC (Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands) and revoke its commitments to countries within its own free trade area (which France had not done with its own). He supported a deepening and an acceleration of Common Market integration rather than an expansion.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: However, in this latter respect, a detailed study of the formative years of the EEC argues that the defence of French economic interests, especially in agriculture, in fact played a more dominant role in determining de Gaulle's stance towards British entry than the various political and foreign policy considerations that have often been cited.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Dean Acheson believed that Britain made a grave error in not signing up to European integration right from the start, and that they continued to suffer the political consequences for at least two decades afterwards. However he also stated his belief that de Gaulle used the 'Common Market' (as it was then termed) as an "exclusionary device to direct European trade towards the interest of France and against that of the United States, Britain and other countries."


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Claiming continental European solidarity, de Gaulle again rejected British entry when they next applied to join the community in December 1967 under the Labour leadership of Harold Wilson. During negotiations, de Gaulle chided Britain for relying too much on the Americans, saying that sooner or later they would always do what was in their best interests. Wilson said he then gently raised the spectre of the threat of a newly powerful Germany as a result of the EEC, which de Gaulle agreed was a risk. After de Gaulle left office the United Kingdom applied again and finally became a member of the EEC in January 1973.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In January 1964, France was, after the UK, among the first of the major Western powers to open diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC), which was established in 1949 and which was isolated on the international scene. By recognizing Mao Zedong's government, de Gaulle signaled to both Washington and Moscow that France intended to deploy an independent foreign policy. The move was criticized in the United States as it seemed to seriously damage US policy of containment in Asia. De Gaulle justified this action by "the weight of evidence and reason", considering that China's demographic weight and geographic extent put it in a position to have a global leading role. De Gaulle also used this opportunity to arouse rivalry between the USSR and China, a policy that was followed several years later by Henry Kissinger's "triangular diplomacy" which also aimed to create a Sino-Soviet split.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: France established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China – the first step towards formal recognition without first severing links with the Republic of China (Taiwan), led by Chiang Kai-shek. Hitherto the PRC had insisted that all nations abide by a "one China" condition, and at first it was unclear how the matter would be settled. However, the agreement to exchange ambassadors was subject to a delay of three months, and in February, Chiang Kai-shek resolved the problem by cutting off diplomatic relations with France. Eight years later, US President Richard Nixon visited the PRC and began normalising relations—a policy which was confirmed in the Shanghai Communiqué of 28 February 1972.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: As part of a European tour, Nixon visited France in 1969. He and de Gaulle both shared the same non-Wilsonian approach to world affairs, believing in nations and their relative strengths, rather than in ideologies, international organisations, or multilateral agreements. De Gaulle is famously known for calling the UN the pejorative "" ("the thingamajig").


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: During the autumn of 1964, de Gaulle embarked on a grueling 20,000-mile trek across Latin America despite being a month away from his 75th birthday, a recent operation for prostate cancer, and concerns over security. He had visited Mexico the previous year and spoke, in Spanish, to the Mexican people on the eve of their celebrations of their independence at the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City. During his new 26-day visit, he was again keen to gain both cultural and economic influence. He spoke constantly of his resentment of US influence in Latin America—"that some states should establish a power of political or economic direction outside their own borders". Yet France could provide no investment or aid to match that from Washington.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In the Bretton Woods system put in place in 1944, US dollars were convertible to gold. In France, it was called "America's exorbitant privilege" as it resulted in an "asymmetric financial system" where foreigners "see themselves supporting American living standards and subsidizing American multinationals". As American economist Barry Eichengreen summarized: "It costs only a few cents for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to produce a $100 bill, but other countries had to pony up $100 of actual goods in order to obtain one". In February 1965, President Charles de Gaulle announced his intention to exchange its US dollar reserves for gold at the official exchange rate. He sent the French Navy across the Atlantic to pick up the French reserve of gold, which had been moved there during World War II, and was followed by several countries. As it resulted in considerably reducing US gold stock and US economic influence, it led US President Richard Nixon to unilaterally end the convertibility of the dollar to gold on 15 August 1971 (the "Nixon Shock"). This was meant to be a temporary measure but the dollar became permanently a floating fiat money and in October 1976, the US government officially changed the definition of the dollar; references to gold were removed from statutes.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In December 1965, de Gaulle returned as president for a second seven-year term. In the first round he did not win the expected majority, receiving 45% of the vote. Both of his main rivals did better than expected; the leftist François Mitterrand received 32% and Jean Lecanuet, who advocated for what "Life" described as "Gaullism without de Gaulle", received 16%. De Gaulle won a majority in the second round, with Mitterrand receiving 44.8%.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In September 1966, in a famous speech in Phnom Penh in Cambodia, he expressed France's disapproval of the US involvement in the Vietnam War, calling for a US withdrawal from Vietnam as the only way to ensure peace. De Gaulle considered the war to be the "greatest absurdity of the twentieth century". De Gaulle conversed frequently with George Ball, United States President Lyndon Johnson's Under Secretary of State, and told Ball that he feared that the United States risked repeating France's tragic experience in Vietnam, which de Gaulle called ""ce pays pourri"" ("the rotten country"). Ball later sent a 76-page memorandum to Johnson critiquing Johnson's current Vietnam policy in October 1964.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle later visited Guadeloupe for two days, in the aftermath of Hurricane Inez, bringing aid which totaled billions of francs.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: During the establishment of the European Community, de Gaulle helped precipitate the Empty Chair Crisis, one of the greatest crises in the history of the EEC. It involved the financing of the Common Agricultural Policy, but almost more importantly the use of qualified majority voting in the EC (as opposed to unanimity). In June 1965, after France and the other five members could not agree, de Gaulle withdrew France's representatives from the EC. Their absence left the organisation essentially unable to run its affairs until the Luxembourg compromise was reached in January 1966. De Gaulle succeeded in influencing the decision-making mechanism written into the Treaty of Rome by insisting on solidarity founded on mutual understanding. He vetoed Britain's entry into the EEC a second time, in June 1967.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: With tension rising in the Middle East in 1967, de Gaulle on 2 June declared an arms embargo against Israel, just three days before the outbreak of the Six-Day War. This, however, did not affect spare parts for the French military hardware with which the Israeli armed forces were equipped.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: This was an abrupt change in French policy. In 1956, France, Britain and Israel had cooperated in an elaborate effort to retake the Suez Canal from Egypt. Israel's air force operated French Mirage and Mystère jets in the Six-Day War, and its navy was building its new missile boats in Cherbourg. Though paid for, their transfer to Israel was now blocked by de Gaulle's government. But they were smuggled out in an operation that drew further denunciations from the French government. The last boats took to the sea in December 1969, directly after a major deal between France and now-independent Algeria exchanging French armaments for Algerian oil.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Under de Gaulle, following the independence of Algeria, France embarked on foreign policy more favorable to the Arab side. President de Gaulle's position in 1967 at the time of the Six-Day War played a part in France's new-found popularity in the Arab world. Israel turned towards the United States for arms, and toward its own industry. In a televised news conference on 27 November 1967, de Gaulle described the Jewish people as "this elite people, sure of themselves and domineering".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In his letter to David Ben-Gurion dated 9 January 1968, he explained that he was convinced that Israel had ignored his warnings and overstepped the bounds of moderation by taking possession of Jerusalem, and Jordanian, Egyptian, and Syrian territory by force of arms. He felt Israel had exercised repression and expulsions during the occupation and that it amounted to annexation. He said that provided Israel withdrew its forces, it appeared that it might be possible to reach a solution through the UN framework which could include assurances of a dignified and fair future for refugees and minorities in the Middle East, recognition from Israel's neighbours, and freedom of navigation through the Gulf of Aqaba and the Suez Canal.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The Eastern Region of Nigeria declared itself independent under the name of the Independent Republic of Biafra on 30 May 1967. On 6 July, the first shots in the Nigerian Civil War were fired, marking the start of a conflict that lasted until January 1970. Britain provided military aid to the Federal Republic of Nigeria—yet more was made available by the Soviet Union. Under de Gaulle's leadership, France embarked on a period of interference outside the traditional French zone of influence. A policy geared toward the break-up of Nigeria put Britain and France into opposing camps. Relations between France and Nigeria had been under strain since the third French nuclear explosion in the Sahara in December 1960. From August 1968, when its embargo was lifted, France provided limited and covert support to the Biafra rebels. Although French arms helped to keep Biafra in action for the final 15 months of the civil war, its involvement was seen as insufficient and counterproductive. The Biafran chief of staff stated that the French "did more harm than good by raising false hopes and by providing the British with an excuse to reinforce Nigeria."


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In July 1967, de Gaulle visited Canada, which was celebrating its centenary with a world fair in Montreal, Expo 67. On 24 July, speaking to a large crowd from a balcony at Montreal's city hall, de Gaulle shouted "Vive le Québec libre! Vive le Canada français! Et vive la France!" (Long live free Quebec! Long live French Canada, and long live France!). The Canadian media harshly criticized the statement, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Lester B. Pearson, stated that "Canadians do not need to be liberated". De Gaulle left Canada abruptly two days later, without proceeding to Ottawa as scheduled. He never returned to Canada. The speech offended many English-speaking Canadians and was heavily criticized in France as well, and led to a significant diplomatic rift between the two countries.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The event however was seen as a watershed moment by the Quebec sovereignty movement, and is still a significant milestone of Quebec's history to the eyes of most Quebecers.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In the following year, de Gaulle visited Brittany, where he declaimed a poem written by his uncle (also called Charles de Gaulle) in the Breton language. The speech followed a series of crackdowns on Breton nationalism. De Gaulle was accused of hypocrisy, on the one hand supporting a "free" Quebec because of linguistic and ethnic differences from other Canadians, while on the other hand suppressing a regional and ethnic nationalist movement in Brittany.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: General de Gaulle paid an official visit to Poland on 6 September 1967 and spent an entire week there. De Gaulle described it as his "pilgrimage to Poland" and visited Warsaw, Gdańsk, Kraków and Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He met with crowds of people on the streets and shouted (in Polish) "Long live Poland! Our dear, noble and brave Poland!". Without discussion, de Gaulle announced that France officially recognized the new Polish western border that was established in 1945.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle's government was criticized within France, particularly for its heavy-handed style. While the written press and elections were free, and private stations such as Europe 1 were able to broadcast in French from abroad, the state's ORTF had a monopoly on television and radio. This monopoly meant that the government was in a position to directly influence broadcast news. In many respects, Gaullist France was conservative, Catholic, and there were few women in high-level political posts (in May 1968, the government's ministers were 100% male). Many factors contributed to a general weariness of sections of the public, particularly the student youth, which led to the events of May 1968.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The mass demonstrations and strikes in France in May 1968 severely challenged De Gaulle's legitimacy. He and other government leaders feared that the country was on the brink of revolution or civil war. On 29 May, De Gaulle disappeared without notifying Prime Minister Pompidou or anyone else in the government, stunning the country. He fled to Baden-Baden in Germany to meet with General Massu, head of the French military there, to discuss possible army intervention against the protesters. De Gaulle returned to France after being assured of the military's support, in return for which De Gaulle agreed to amnesty for the 1961 coup plotters and OAS members.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In a private meeting discussing the students' and workers' demands for direct participation in business and government he coined the phrase "La réforme oui, la chienlit non", which can be politely translated as 'reform yes, masquerade/chaos no.' It was a vernacular scatological pun meaning 'chie-en-lit, no' (shit-in-bed, no). The term is now common parlance in French political commentary, used both critically and ironically referring back to de Gaulle.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: But de Gaulle offered to accept some of the reforms the demonstrators sought. He again considered a referendum to support his moves, but on 30 May, Pompidou persuaded him to dissolve parliament (in which the government had all but lost its majority in the March 1967 elections) and hold new elections instead. The June 1968 elections were a major success for the Gaullists and their allies; when shown the spectre of revolution or civil war, the majority of the country rallied to him. His party won 352 of 487 seats, but de Gaulle remained personally unpopular; a survey conducted immediately after the crisis showed that a majority of the country saw him as too old, too self-centered, too authoritarian, too conservative, and too anti-American.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle resigned the presidency at noon, 28 April 1969, following the rejection of his proposed reform of the Senate and local governments in a nationwide referendum. In an eight-minute televised speech two days before the referendum, De Gaulle warned that if he was "disavowed" by a majority of the voters, he would resign his office immediately. This ultimatum, coupled with increased De Gaulle fatigue among the French, convinced many that this was an opportunity to be rid of the 78-year-old general and the reform package was rejected. Two months later Georges Pompidou was elected as his successor.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle retired once again to his beloved nine-acre country estate, La Boisserie (the woodland glade), in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, 120 miles southeast of Paris. There the General, who often described old age as a "shipwreck", continued his memoirs, dictated to his secretary from notes. To visitors, de Gaulle said, "I will finish three books, if God grants me life." "The Renewal", the first of three planned volumes to be called "Memoirs of Hope", was quickly finished and immediately became the fastest seller in French publishing history.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: On 9 November 1970, less than two weeks before his 80th birthday, Charles de Gaulle died suddenly, despite enjoying very robust health his entire life (except for a prostate operation a few years earlier). He had been watching the evening news on television and playing Solitaire around 7:40 p.m. when he suddenly pointed to his head and said, "I feel a pain right here", and then collapsed. His wife called the doctor and the local priest, but by the time they arrived he had died from an aneurysm. His wife asked that she be allowed to inform her family before the news was released. She was able to contact her daughter in Paris quickly, but their son, who was in the navy, was difficult to track down. President Georges Pompidou was not informed until 4 AM the next day, and announced the general's death on television some 18 hours after the event. He simply said, ""Le général de Gaulle est mort; la France est veuve."" ("General de Gaulle is dead. France is a widow.")


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle had made arrangements that insisted his funeral be held at Colombey, and that no presidents or ministers attend his funeral—only his "Compagnons de la Libération". Despite his wishes, such were the number of foreign dignitaries who wanted to honor de Gaulle that Pompidou was forced to arrange a separate memorial service at the Notre-Dame Cathedral, to be held at the same time as his actual funeral.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: The funeral on 12 November 1970 was the biggest such event in French history, with hundreds of thousands of French people — many carrying blankets and picnic baskets — and thousands of cars parked in the roads and fields along the routes to the two venues. On the day of the funeral, there was national mourning, many entertainment and cultural events were canceled, and schools and offices were closed. Thousands of guests attended the event, included De Gaulle's successor Georges Pompidou, U.S. president Richard Nixon, British prime minister Edward Heath, UN secretary-general U Thant, Soviet statesman Nikolai Podgorny, Italian president Giuseppe Saragat, West German chancellor Willy Brandt and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. Special trains were laid on to bring extra mourners to the region and the crowd was packed so tightly that those who fainted had to be passed overhead toward first-aid stations at the rear. The General was conveyed to the church on an armoured reconnaissance vehicle and carried to his grave, next to his daughter Anne, by eight young men of Colombey. As he was lowered into the ground, the bells of all the churches in France tolled, starting from Notre Dame and spreading out from there.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle specified that his tombstone bear the simple inscription of his name and his years of birth and death. Therefore, it simply states, "Charles de Gaulle, 1890–1970". At the service, President Pompidou said, "de Gaulle gave France her governing institutions, her independence and her place in the world." André Malraux, the writer and intellectual who served as his Minister of Culture, called him "a man of the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow." De Gaulle's family turned the La Boisserie residence into a foundation. It currently houses the Charles de Gaulle Museum.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux on 7 April 1921 in Église Notre-Dame de Calais. They had three children: Philippe (born 1921), Élisabeth (1924–2013), who married General Alain de Boissieu, and Anne (1928–1948). Anne had Down syndrome and died of pneumonia at the age of 20. He always had a particular love for Anne; one Colombey resident recalled how he used to walk with her hand-in-hand around the property, caressing her and talking quietly about the things she understood.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle had an older brother Xavier (1887–1955) and sister Marie-Agnes (1889–1983), and two younger brothers, Jacques (1893–1946) and Pierre (1897–1959). He was particularly close to the youngest, Pierre, who so resembled him that presidential bodyguards often saluted him by mistake when he visited his famous brother or accompanied him on official visits.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: One of De Gaulle's grandsons, also named Charles de Gaulle, was a member of the European Parliament from 1994 to 2004, his last tenure being for the National Front. The younger Charles de Gaulle's move to the anti-Gaullist Front National was widely condemned by other family members, in open letters and newspaper interviews. "It was like hearing the pope had converted to Islam", one said. Another grandson, Jean de Gaulle, was a member of the French parliament until his retirement in 2007.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle made 31 regional tours during his presidency, visiting every French department; for many small towns, the visit was an important moment in history. He enjoyed entering the welcoming crowds; an aide noted how often people said "he saw me" or "he touched me", and another recalled how a mother begged de Gaulle for the king's touch on her baby. They, supporters, and opponents surmised that de Gaulle was a monarch-like figure for the French.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Historians have accorded Napoleon and de Gaulle the top-ranking status of French leaders in the 19th and 20th centuries. According to a 2005 survey, carried out in the context of the tenth anniversary of the death of Socialist President François Mitterrand, 35 percent of respondents said Mitterrand was the best French president ever, followed by Charles de Gaulle (30 percent) and then Jacques Chirac (12 percent). Another poll by BVA four years later showed that 87% of French people regarded his presidency positively.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Statues honouring de Gaulle have been erected in London, Warsaw, in Moscow, Bucharest and Quebec. The first Algerian president, Ahmed Ben Bella, said that de Gaulle was the "military leader who brought us the hardest blows" prior to Algerian independence, but "saw further" than other politicians, and had a "universal dimension that is too often lacking in current leaders." Likewise, Léopold Sédar Senghor, the first president of Senegal, said that few Western leaders could boast of having risked their lives to grant a colony independence.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In 1990, President Mitterrand, de Gaulle's old political rival, presided over the celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. Mitterrand, who once wrote a vitriolic critique of him called the "Permanent Coup d'État", quoted a recent opinion poll, saying, "As General de Gaulle, he has entered the pantheon of great national heroes, where he ranks ahead of Napoleon and behind only Charlemagne." Under the influence of Jean-Pierre Chevènement, the leader of CERES, the left-wing and souverainist faction of the Socialist Party, Mitterrand had, except on certain economic and social policies, rallied to much of Gaullism. Between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s there developed a left-right consensus, dubbed "Gaullo-Mitterrandism", behind the "French status" in NATO: i.e. outside the integrated military command.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Although he initially enjoyed good relations with US President John F. Kennedy, who admired his stance against the Soviet Union—particularly when the Berlin Wall was being built—and who called him "a great captain of the Western world", their relationship later cooled. He was Kennedy's most loyal ally during the Cuban Missile Crisis and supported the right that the US claimed to defend its interests in the western hemisphere, in contrast to German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer who doubted Kennedy's commitment to Europe and thought the crisis could have been avoided. De Gaulle accepted that it might be necessary for the United States to take preemptive military action against Cuba, unlike many other European leaders of his time. De Gaulle was a prominent figure at the state funerals of two American presidents: Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower (Eisenhower's funeral was his only visit to the U.S. since the funeral of JFK).


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle was admired by the later President Nixon. After a meeting at the Palace of Versailles just before the general left office, Nixon declared that "He did not try to put on airs but an aura of majesty seemed to envelop him ... his performance—and I do not use that word disparagingly—was breathtaking." On arriving for his funeral several months later, Nixon said of him, "greatness knows no national boundaries".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Lt. General Vernon A. Walters, a military attaché of Dwight Eisenhower and later military attaché in France from 1967 to 1973, noted the strong relationship between de Gaulle and Eisenhower, de Gaulle's unconditional support of Eisenhower during the U-2 incident, and de Gaulle's strong support of John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thus Walters was intensely curious as to the great contrast between de Gaulle's close relations with two United States presidents during notable Cold War crises and de Gaulle's later decision to withdraw France from NATO's military command, and Walters spoke with many close military and political aides of de Gaulle.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Walters' conclusion, based upon de Gaulle's comments to many of his aides (and to Eisenhower during a meeting at Ramboullet Castle in 1959), is that de Gaulle feared that later United States presidents after Eisenhower would not have Eisenhower's special ties to Europe and would not risk nuclear war over Europe. Also, de Gaulle interpreted the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis without fighting to take back Cuba from communism a mere 90 miles from the United States as an indication that the United States might not fight for Europe's defense 3,500 miles away following Soviet aggression in Europe, but would only go to war following a nuclear strike against the United States itself. De Gaulle told Eisenhower that France did not seek to compete with the Strategic Air Command or army of the United States, but believed that France needed a way to strike the Soviet Union.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: A number of commentators have been critical of de Gaulle for his failure to prevent the massacres after Algerian independence while others take the view that the struggle had been so long and savage that it was perhaps inevitable. The Australian historian Brian Crozier wrote, "that he was able to part with Algeria without civil war was a great though negative achievement which in all probability would have been beyond the capacity of any other leader France possessed." In April 1961, when four rebel generals seized power in Algeria, he "did not flinch in the face of this daunting challenge", but appeared on television in his general's uniform to forbid Frenchmen to obey the rebels' orders in an "inflexible display of personal authority".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: De Gaulle was an excellent manipulator of the media, as seen in his shrewd use of television to persuade around 80% of Metropolitan France to approve the new constitution for the Fifth Republic. In so doing, he refused to yield to the reasoning of his opponents who said that, if he succeeded in Algeria, he would no longer be necessary. He afterwards enjoyed massive approval ratings, and once said that "every Frenchman is, has been or will be Gaullist".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: That de Gaulle did not necessarily reflect mainstream French public opinion with his veto was suggested by the decisive majority of French people who voted in favour of British membership when the much more conciliatory Pompidou called a referendum on the matter in 1972. His early influence in setting the parameters of the EEC can still be seen today, most notably with the controversial Common Agricultural Policy.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Some writers take the view that Pompidou was a more progressive and influential leader than de Gaulle because, though also a Gaullist, he was less autocratic and more interested in social reforms. Although he followed the main tenets of de Gaulle's foreign policy, he was keen to work towards warmer relations with the United States. A banker by profession, Pompidou is also widely credited, as de Gaulle's prime minister from 1962 to 1968, with putting in place the reforms which provided the impetus for the economic growth which followed.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: In 1968, shortly before leaving office, de Gaulle refused to devalue the Franc on grounds of national prestige, but upon taking over Pompidou reversed the decision almost straight away. It was ironic, that during the financial crisis of 1968, France had to rely on American (and West German) financial aid to help shore up the economy.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Perry has written that the "events of 1968 illustrated the brittleness of de Gaulle's rule. That he was taken by surprise is an indictment of his rule; he was too remote from real life and had no interest in the conditions under which ordinary French people lived. Problems like inadequate housing and social services had been ignored. The French greeted the news of his departure with some relief as the feeling had grown that he had outlived his usefulness. Perhaps he clung onto power too long, perhaps he should have retired in 1965 when he was still popular."


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Brian Crozier said "the fame of de Gaulle outstrips his achievements, he chose to make repeated gestures of petulance and defiance that weakened the west without compensating advantages to France"


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: Régis Debray called de Gaulle "super-lucide" and pointed out that virtually all of his predictions, such as the fall of communism, the reunification of Germany and the resurrection of 'old' Russia, came true after his death. Debray compared him with Napoleon ('the great political myth of the 19th century'), calling de Gaulle his 20th century equivalent. "The sublime, it seems, appears in France only once a century ... Napoleon left two generations dead on battlefield. De Gaulle was more sparing with other people's blood; even so, he left us, as it were, stranded, alive but dazed... A delusion, perhaps, but one that turns the world upside down: causes events and movements; divides people into supporters and adversaries; leaves traces in the form of civil and penal codes and railways, factories and institutions (the Fifth Republic has already lasted three times as long as the Empire). A statesman who gets something going, who has followers, escapes the reality of the reports and statistics and become part of imagination. Napoleon and de Gaulle modified the state of things because they modified souls".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: However, Debray pointed out that there is a difference between Napoleon and de Gaulle: "How can the exterminator be compared with the liberator? ... The former ran the whole enterprise into the ground, while the latter managed to save it. So that to measure the rebel against the despot, the challenger against the leader, is just glaringly idiotic. You simply do not put an adventurer who worked for himself or his family on the same level as a commander-in-chief serving his country. ... Regrettably, Gaullism and Bonapartism have a number of features in common, but Napoleon and de Gaulle do not have the same moral value. ... the first wanted a Holy French Empire without the faith, a Europe under French occupation. The second wanted to rescue the nation from the emperors and establish a free France in a free Europe".


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: While de Gaulle had many admirers, he was at the same time one of the most hated and reviled men in modern French history.


title: Charles de Gaulle

text: France's largest airport, located in Roissy, outside Paris, is named Charles de Gaulle Airport in his honour. France's nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is also named after him.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras (the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, and is the most prominent cultural, economic and educational centre of South India.


title: Chennai

text: According to the 2011 Indian census, Chennai is the sixth-most populous city in the country and forms the fourth-most populous urban agglomeration. The Greater Chennai Corporation is the civic body responsible for the city; it is the oldest city corporation of India, established in 1688—the second oldest in the world after London. The city of Chennai is coterminous with Chennai district, which together with the adjoining suburbs constitutes the Chennai Metropolitan Area, the 36th-largest urban area in the world by population and one of the largest metropolitan economies of India.


title: Chennai

text: The traditional and de facto gateway of South India, Chennai is among the most-visited Indian cities by foreign tourists. It was ranked the 43rd-most visited city in the world for the year 2015 and was ranked the 36th-most visited city in the world for the year 2019. The Quality of Living Survey rated Chennai as the safest city in India. Chennai attracts 45 percent of health tourists visiting India, and 30 to 40 percent of domestic health tourists. As such, it is termed "India's health capital". An established port of trade of British India since the 1600s, Chennai has the fifth-largest urban economy, and had the third-largest expatriate population in India, at 35,000 in 2009, 82,790 in 2011 and estimated at over 100,000 by 2016. Tourism-guide publisher Lonely Planet named Chennai as one of the top ten cities in the world to visit in 2015.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai is ranked as a beta-level city in the Global Cities Index, and was ranked the best city in India by "India Today" in the 2014 annual Indian city survey. In 2015 Chennai was named the "hottest" city (city worth visiting and worth living in for long term) by the BBC, citing the mixture of both modern and traditional values. National Geographic mentioned Chennai as the only South Asian city to feature in its 2015 "Top 10 food cities" list. Chennai was also named the ninth-best cosmopolitan city in the world by Lonely Planet. In October 2017, Chennai was added to the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) list for its rich musical tradition. More than one-third of India's automobile industry is based in the city. Home to the Tamil film industry, Chennai is also known as a major film production centre. It is one of the 100 Indian cities to be developed as a smart city under the Smart Cities Mission.


title: Chennai

text: The name "Chennai" is of Telugu language origin. It was derived from the name of a Telugu ruler, Damarla Mudirasa Chennappa Nayakudu, father of Damarla Venkatapathy Nayak, a Nayak ruler who served as a general under Venkata III of the Vijayanagara Empire from whom the British acquired the town in 1639. The first official use of the name "Chennai" is said to be in a sale deed, dated August 1639, to Francis Day of the East India Company, even before the Chennakesava Perumal Temple was built in 1646, while some scholars argue to the contrary.


title: Chennai

text: The name "Madras" is also of native origin, and has been shown to have been in use before the British established a presence in India. A Vijayanagara-era inscription dated to the year 1367 that mentions the port of Mādarasanpattanam, along with other small ports on the east coast, was discovered in 2015 and it was theorised that the aforementioned port is the fishing port of Royapuram. According to some sources, "Madras" is derived from Madraspattinam, a fishing village north of Fort St George. However, it is uncertain whether the name was in use before the arrival of Europeans. British military mapmakers believed Madras was originally "Mundir-raj" or "Mundiraj," which was the name of a Telugu community, Mudiraj, who were the native inhabitants of the city.


title: Chennai

text: There are also suggestions that it may have originated from the Portuguese phrase "Mãe de Deus" or "Madre de Dios", which means "mother of God", due to Portuguese influence on the port city, specifically referring to a Church of St. Mary.


title: Chennai

text: In August 1996, the Government of Tamil Nadu officially changed the name from "Madras" to "Chennai". At that time many Indian cities underwent a change of name. However, the name "Madras" continues in occasional use for the city, as well as for places named after the city such as University of Madras, IIT Madras, Madras Institute of Technology, Madras Medical College, Madras Veterinary College, Madras Christian College.


title: Chennai

text: Stone age implements have been found near Pallavaram in Chennai. According to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Pallavaram was a megalithic cultural establishment, and pre-historic communities resided in the settlement.


title: Chennai

text: The region around Chennai has served as an important administrative, military, and economic centre for many centuries. During the 1st century CE, a poet and weaver named Thiruvalluvar lived in the town of Mylapore (a neighbourhood of present Chennai). From the 1st–12th century the region of present Tamil Nadu and parts of South India was ruled by the Cholas.


title: Chennai

text: The Pallavas of Kanchi built the areas of Mahabalipuram and Pallavaram during the reign of Mahendravarman I. They also defeated several kingdoms including the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas who ruled over the area before their arrival. Sculpted caves and paintings have been identified from that period. Ancient coins dating to around 500 BCE have also been unearthed from the city and its surrounding areas. A portion of these findings belonged to the Vijayanagara Empire, which ruled the region during the medieval period.


title: Chennai

text: The Portuguese first arrived in 1522 and built a port called "São Tomé" after the Christian apostle, St. Thomas, who is believed to have preached in the area between 52 and 70 CE. In 1612, the Dutch established themselves near Pulicat, north of Chennai.


title: Chennai

text: On 20 August 1639 Francis Day of the East India Company along with the Nayak of Kalahasti Damarla Chennappa Nayakudu, travelled to the Chandragiri palace for an audience with the Vijayanager Emperor Peda Venkata Raya. Day was seeking to obtain a grant for land on the Coromandel coast on which the company could build a factory and warehouse for their trading activities. He was successful in obtaining the lease of a strip of land about long and inland in return for a yearly sum of five hundred lakh pagodas. On 22 August, he secured the land grant from local Nayak (Damarla Venkatadri Nayaka and his younger brother Aiyappa Nayaka of Poonamallee). The region was then formerly a fishing village known as "Madraspatnam". A year later, the Company built Fort St. George, the first major English settlement in India, which became the nucleus of the growing colonial city and urban Chennai, grew around this Fort. Post independence the fort housed the Tamil Nadu Assembly until the new Secretariat building was opened in 2010, but shortly afterwards it was again moved back to Fort St. George, due to a change in the Government.


title: Chennai

text: In 1746, Fort St. George and Madras were captured by the French under General La Bourdonnais, the Governor of Mauritius, who plundered the town and its outlying villages. The British regained control in 1749 through the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and strengthened the town's fortress wall to withstand further attacks from the French and Hyder Ali, the Sultan of Mysore. They resisted a French siege attempt in 1759. In 1769 the city was threatened by Mysore and the British were defeated by Hyder Ali, after which the Treaty of Madras ended the war. By the 18th century, the British had conquered most of the region around Tamil Nadu and the northern modern–day states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, establishing the Madras Presidency with Madras as the capital.


title: Chennai

text: Gradually, the city grew into a major naval base and became the central administrative centre for the British in South India. The city served as the baseline for the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India started on 10 April 1802. With the advent of railways in India in the 19th century, the thriving urban centre was connected to other important cities such as Bombay and Calcutta, promoting increased communication and trade with the hinterland. Sir Arthur Lawley was Governor of Madras from 1906 to 1911 and promoted modern agriculture, industry, railways, education, the arts and more democratic governance. The Governor lived in Government House, Fort St George, and had a country home at Guindy, with access to a golf course, hockey pitches, riding stables and the Guindy Horse Racing Track. In the First World War as Red Cross Commissioner in Mesopotamia, he looked after the welfare of Indian soldiers. Madras was the only Indian city to be attacked by the Central Powers during World War I, when an oil depot was shelled by the German light cruiser on 22 September 1914, as it raided shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean, causing disruption to shipping.


title: Chennai

text: After India gained its independence in 1947, the city became the capital of Madras State, which was renamed as Tamil Nadu in 1969. The violent agitations of 1965 against the compulsory imposition of Hindi and in support of English in India in the state marked a major shift in the political dynamics of the city and eventually it had a big impact on the whole state. Because of Madras and its people, English was not abolished as an official language, and remains an official language of India alongside Hindi. On 17 July 1996, the city known as Madras was officially renamed Chennai, in line with what was then a nationwide trend to using less Anglicised names. On 26 December 2004, an Indian Ocean tsunami lashed the shores of Chennai, killing 206 people in Chennai and permanently altering the coastline. The 2015 Chennai Floods submerged major portions of the city, killing 269 people and resulting in damages of .


title: Chennai

text: Chennai is located on the south–eastern coast of India in the north–eastern part of Tamil Nadu on a flat coastal plain known as the Eastern Coastal Plains. Its average elevation is around , and its highest point is . Chennai is south of Delhi, southeast of Mumbai, and southwest of Kolkata by road. Two major rivers flow through Chennai, the Cooum River (or "Koovam") through the centre and the Adyar River to the south. A third river, the Kortalaiyar, travels through the northern fringes of the city before draining into the Bay of Bengal, at Ennore. The estuary of this river is heavily polluted with effluents released by the industries in the region. Adyar and Cooum rivers are heavily polluted with effluents and waste from domestic and commercial sources, the Coumm being so heavily polluted it is regarded as the city's eyesore. A protected estuary on the Adyar forms a natural habitat for several species of birds and animals. The Buckingham Canal, inland, runs parallel to the coast, linking the two rivers. The Otteri Nullah, an east–west stream, runs through north Chennai and meets the Buckingham Canal at Basin Bridge. Several lakes of varying size are located on the western fringes of the city. Some areas of the city have the problem of excess iron content in groundwater.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai's soil is mostly clay, shale and sandstone. Clay underlies most of the city, chiefly Manali, Kolathur, Maduravoyal, K. K. Nagar, Tambaram, Mudichur, Pallavaram Semmencherry, Alapakkam, Vyasarpadi and Anna Nagar. Sandy areas are found along the river banks and coasts, and include areas such as Tiruvottiyur, George Town, Madhavaram, New Washermanpet, Chepauk, Mylapore, Porur, Adyar, Besant Nagar and Uthandi. In these areas, rainwater runoff percolates quickly through the soil. Areas having hard rock surface include Guindy, Nanganallur, Pallikaranai, Alandur, Jaladampet, Velachery, Adambakkam and a part of Saidapet and Perungudi. The ground water table in Chennai is at 4–5 m below ground in most of the areas, which was considerably improved and maintained through the mandatory rain water harvesting system. Of the 24.87 km coastline of the city, 3.08 km experiences erosion, with sand accretion along the shoreline can be noticed at the Marina beach and the area between the Ennore Port and Kosasthalaiyar river.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai is classified as being in Seismic Zone III, indicating a moderate risk of damage from earthquakes. Owing to the geotectonic zone the city falls in, the city is considered a potential geothermal energy site. The crust has granite rocks indicating volcanic activities in the past. It is expected that temperatures of around 200 to 300 C° will be available if the ground were drilled 4 to 5 km deep. The region has the oldest rocks in the country dating back to nearly a billion years.


title: Chennai

text: The southern stretch of Chennai's coast from Tiruvanmiyur to Neelangarai are favoured by the endangered olive ridley sea turtles to lay eggs every winter. A large number of cattle egrets, pond herons and other waterbirds can be seen in the rivers of Cooum and Adyar. About 75,000 birds migrate to Chennai every year. Marshy wetlands such as Pallikaranai also play host to a number of migratory birds during the monsoon and winter. Over 300 species of birds have been recorded in the city and its neighbourhood by members of Madras Naturalists' Society since its inception in 1978.


title: Chennai

text: Guindy National Park is a protected area within the city limits. Wildlife conservation and research activities take place at


title: Chennai

text: Arignar Anna Zoological Park including olive ridley sea turtle conservation. Madras Crocodile Bank Trust is a herpetology research station, located south of Chennai. The city's tree cover is estimated to be around 64.06 sq km. The most dominant tree species is the copper pod, followed by Indian beech and Neem. A total of 121 species of trees belonging to 94 genera and 42 families are found in the city. Nearly half of the native plant species in the city's wetlands have disappeared in recent years. The city, which had 85 percent of its area covered with aquatic plants until the 1970s, now has only 25 percent of its area covered with such plants.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai has three rivers and many lakes spread across the city. Urbanization has led to the shrinkage of water bodies and wetlands. The quantity of wetlands in the city has decreased from 650 to only 27 currently. The Chennai River Restoration trust set up by the government is working on the restoration of Adyar river. Environmentalist Foundation of India is a volunteering group working towards wildlife conservation and habitat restoration.


title: Chennai

text: The encroachment of urban development on wetlands has gravely hampered the city's sustainability, and contributed both to the city's floods in 2015 and water scarcity crisis in 2019.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai has a dry-summer tropical wet and dry climate under the (Köppen climate classification). The city lies on the thermal equator and is also on the coast, which prevents extreme variation in seasonal temperature. The hottest part of the year is late May to early June, known regionally as "Agni Nakshatram" ("fire star") or as "Kathiri Veyyil", with maximum temperatures around . The coolest part of the year is January, with minimum temperatures around . The lowest recorded temperature was on 11 December 1895 and 29 January 1905. The highest recorded temperature was on 31 May 2003. The average annual rainfall is about .


title: Chennai

text: The city gets most of its seasonal rainfall from the north–east monsoon winds, from mid–October to mid–December. Cyclones in the Bay of Bengal sometimes hit the city. The highest annual rainfall recorded is in 2005. Prevailing winds in Chennai are usually southwesterly between April and October and north-easterly during the rest of the year. Historically, Chennai has relied on the annual rains of the monsoon season to replenish water reservoirs, as no major rivers flow through the area. Chennai has a water table at 2 metres for 60 percent of the year.


title: Chennai

text: The city of Chennai is located on the east coast of India, which is also known as the Coromandel Coast.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai is largely dependent on NE monsoon, since 65% of rains are received in this season. Cyclones and depressions are common features during the season. Cyclones, in particular, are especially unpredictable. They may even move towards Orissa, west Bengal, Bangladesh, and also Myanmar. The season between October and December is referred as the NE monsoon period. Floods are common during this period. In 2015 Chennai received record-breaking rains since 1918, which caused massive floods.


title: Chennai

text: As of 2018, the city had a green cover of 14.9 percent, against the World Health Organization recommendation of 9 square metres of green cover per capita in cities. The city had a built-up area of 71 percent. Waterbodies cover an estimated 6 percent of the total area, and at least 8 percent of the area has classified as open space. As of 2017, the total volume of water harvested was 339 mcft and groundwater recharge was 170 mcft.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai city is governed by the Greater Chennai Corporation (formerly "Corporation of Madras"), which was established in 1688. It is the oldest surviving municipal corporation in India and the second oldest surviving corporation in the world. In 2011, the jurisdiction of the Chennai Corporation was expanded from to an area of , dividing into three regions—North, South and Central, which covers 200 wards. The corporation is headed by a mayor, an office presently occupied by Saidai Sa. Duraisamy. The Mayor and councillors of the city are elected through a popular vote by the residents. While the city limit was expanded in 2011, the revised population is yet to be officially announced.


title: Chennai

text: The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) is the nodal agency responsible for planning and development of Chennai Metropolitan Area, which is spread over an area of , covering the Chennai district and parts of Tiruvallur, Kanchipuram and Chengalpattu districts. The larger suburbs are governed by town municipalities and the smaller ones are governed by town councils called panchayats. Under the gamut of the CMDA are 5 parliamentary and 28 assembly constituencies. The CMDA has drafted an additional Master Plan that aims to develop satellite townships around the city. The city's contiguous satellite towns include Mahabalipuram in the south, Chengalpattu and Maraimalai Nagar in the southwest, and Sriperumpudur, Arakkonam, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur to the west.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai, as the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, houses the state executive and legislative headquarters primarily in the Secretariat Buildings in the Fort St George campus. The Madras High Court, is the highest judicial authority in the state, whose jurisdiction extends across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Chennai has three parliamentary constituencies—Chennai North, Chennai Central and Chennai South—and elects 24 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) to the state legislature.


title: Chennai

text: The Greater Chennai Police is the main law enforcement agency in the city, with a jurisdiction of over catering to over 8.5 million people. It consists of 121 police stations and is headed by a commissioner of police. The Greater Chennai Police is a division of the Tamil Nadu Police, and the administrative control lies with the Tamil Nadu Home Ministry. Chennai City Traffic Police (CCTP) is responsible for the traffic management in the city. The metropolitan suburbs are policed by the Chennai Metropolitan Police, headed by the Chennai Police Commissionerate, and the outer district areas of the CMDA are policed by the Kanchipuram and Thiruvallur police departments.


title: Chennai

text: In 2009, Madras Central Prison, one of the oldest prisons in India, built over of land, was demolished; the prisoners were moved to Puzhal Central Prison.


title: Chennai

text: Since the 19th century, when Western scholars proposed that Dravidian languages, which dominated the southern region of India, formed a different linguistic group to that of the Indo-Aryan languages that are predominant in the north of the subcontinent, the aspects of Tamil nationalism gained prominence. This resulted in the Anti-Hindi agitations in the city and across the state. However, the post-Independence re-organisation of Indian states according to linguistic and ethnic basis has moderated Tamil nationalism, especially the demand for separation from the Indian Union. The Anti-Hindi agitations in mid-1960s made the DMK more popular and more powerful political force in the state. The agitations of the 1960s played a crucial role in the defeat of the Tamil Nadu Congress party in the 1967 elections and the continuing dominance of Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu politics.


title: Chennai

text: Being the capital of the Madras Province that covered a vast area of the Deccan region, Chennai remained the centre of politics in the southern region of India during the British colonial era. After Independence, it remained the centre of political activities of the state of Tamil Nadu. Chennai is the birthplace of the idea of the Indian National Congress, commonly known as the Congress Party. Founded by Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society movement, most notably A.O. Hume, the idea was originally conceived in a private meeting of 17 men after a Theosophical Convention held in the city in December 1884. During the first 50 years of the Indian National Congress, the city played host to its conferences seven times in 1887, 1894, 1898, 1903, 1908, 1914 and 1927, becoming one of the strong bases for the Indian independence movement. After independence, the city hosted the Congress in 1955 in its suburb of Avadi.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai is also the birthplace of several regional political movements since the British era. South Indian Welfare Association, one of the earliest regional parties, was founded in 1916, which later came to be known as the Justice Party, which was the main opposition party to the Indian National Congress in the state. In 1944, the party was renamed Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) by E. V. Ramasami (popularly known as 'Periyar'). The party was a non-political party that demanded the establishment of an independent state called Dravida Nadu. However, due to the differences between its two leaders Periyar and C. N. Annadurai, the party was split. Annadurai left the party to form the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). The DMK decided to enter into politics in 1956.


title: Chennai

text: The city's water supply and sewage treatment are managed by the Chennai MetroWater Supply and Sewage Board. Water is drawn from Red Hills Lake and Chembarambakkam Lake, the primary water reservoirs of the city, and treated at water treatment plants located at Kilpauk, Puzhal, Chembarambakkam and supplied to the city through 27 water distribution stations. The city receives 530 million liters per day (mld) of water from Krishna River through Telugu Ganga project, 180 mld of water from the Veeranam lake project and 100 mld of water from the Minjur desalination plant, the country's largest sea water desalination plant. However, Chennai is predicted to face a huge deficit of 713 mld in 2026 as the demand is projected at 2,248 mld and supply estimated at only 1,535 mld. The city's sewer system was designed in 1910, with some modifications in 1958. There are 714 public toilets in the city managed by the city corporation, and 2,000 more have been planned by the corporation. The corporation also owns 52 community halls across the city.


title: Chennai

text: The Corporation of Chennai provides civic services to the city. Garbage collection in some of the wards is contracted to Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited, a private company, while the Corporation looks after the removal and processing of solid waste in the others, with a superintendent engineer managing the channels. , eight transfer stations exist within the city for treating the waste. Garbage is dumped in two dump-yards in the city—One in Kodungaiyur and another in Pallikaranai, with a major portion of the latter covering the Pallikaranai marshland. In market areas, the conservancy work is done during the night. Electricity is distributed by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. Fire services are handled by the Tamil Nadu Fire and Rescue Services. The city, along with the suburbs, has 33 operating fire stations.


title: Chennai

text: With the history of many neighbourhoods of the city such as Mylapore, Triplicane, and Tiruvanmiyur antedating that of the city itself, the architecture of Chennai ranges in a wide chronology. The oldest buildings in the city date from the 7th and 8th centuries CE, which include the Kapaleeshwarar Temple in Mylapore and the Parthasarathy Temple in Triplicane, built in the Dravidian architecture. This architecture includes various styles, such as those of the Pallavas, the Cholas, and the Vijayanagara empires. The associated "Agraharam" architecture, which consists of traditional row houses surrounding a temple, can still be seen in these areas. The heritage temples at Mamallapuram at the outskirts of the city are some of the examples of the Pallava architecture. Chennai ranks second to Kolkata in having the largest collection of Indian heritage buildings in the country.


title: Chennai

text: With the advent of the Mugals and the British, the city saw a rise in a blend of Hindu, Islamic and Gothic revival styles, resulting in the distinct Indo-Saracenic architecture. The architecture for several early institutions such as banking and commerce, railways, press and education, chiefly through the colonial rule, followed the earlier directions of the Neo-Classical and the Indo-Saracenic. The Chepauk Palace in the city, designed by Paul Benfield, is said to be the first Indo-Saracenic building in India. Since then, many of the colonial-era buildings in the city were designed in this style of architecture, which is most apparent around the Fort St. George built in 1640. Most of these were designed by English architects Robert Fellowes Chisholm and Henry Irwin. The best examples of this style include the Madras High Court (built in 1892), Southern Railway headquarters, Ripon Building, Government Museum, Senate House of the University of Madras, Amir Mahal, Bharat Insurance Building, Victoria Public Hall and the College of Engineering. The Triumph of Labour, also known as the Labour statue, at the Marina Beach is an important landmark of Chennai.


title: Chennai

text: The construction of the National Art Gallery in Madras was completed in 1909. The new building, with a distinct façade, was built of pink sandstone brought from Sathyavedu, and formed part of the Madras Museum campus. It was opened, on 23 January 1909, by the Governor of Fort St. George, Sir Arthur Lawley, and called the Victoria Memorial Hall after the Queen-Empress Victoria. The residential architecture in the city was based on the bungalow or the continuous row house prototypes. Gothic revival style buildings include the Chennai Central and Chennai Egmore railway stations. The Santhome Church, which was originally built by the Portuguese in 1523 and is believed to house the remains of the apostle St. Thomas, was rebuilt in 1893 in neo-Gothic style.


title: Chennai

text: By the early 20th century, the art deco too made its entry upon the city's urban landscape. From the 1930s onwards, many buildings in George Town were built in this style, including the United India building (presently housing the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC)) and the Burma Shell building (presently the Chennai House), both built in the 1930s, and the Dare House, built in 1940. Other examples include the Bombay Mutual building (presently housing LIC) and the South Indian Chamber of Commerce building. After Independence, the city witnessed a rise in the Modernism style of architecture. The completion of the LIC Building in 1959, the tallest building in the country at that time, marked the transition from lime-and-brick construction to concrete columns in the region. The presence of the weather radar at the Chennai Port, however, prohibited the construction of buildings taller than 60 m around a radius of 10 km for several decades that followed. In addition, the floor-area ratio (FAR) in the central business district is also 1.5, much less than that of smaller cities of the country. This resulted in the city expanding horizontally, unlike other metropolitan cities where vertical growth was prominent. On the contrary, the peripheral regions, especially on the southern and south-western sides, began experiencing vertical growth with the construction of buildings up to 60 floors. Within the downtown area, the 48-storied Highliving District Tower H remains the tallest building at 161 metres.


title: Chennai

text: A resident of Chennai is called a "Chennaite". According to 2011 census, the city had a population of 4,646,732, within an area of 174 square kilometres administered by the Municipal Corporation, working out a population density of 26,705 persons per square kilometre; that had 11 lakh households, with 51% of them living in rented houses. The city's limits were expanded later in 2011 to 426 square kilometres and its population reached 7,088,000, resulting in a population density of 16,639 persons per square kilometre, with Chennai Municipal Corporation being renamed as Greater Chennai Corporation.


title: Chennai

text: As of 2019, 712,000 families live below poverty line, which is about 40 percent of the 1.788 million families in the city.


title: Chennai

text: Tamils form the majority of Chennai's population. English is spoken largely by white-collar workers, often mixed into Tamil. In 2001, out of the 2,937,000 migrants (33.8% of its population) in the city, 61.5% were from other parts of the state, 33.8% were from rest of India and 3.7% were from outside the country. As per the 2001 census, the number of speakers mother tongue wise are as follows, Tamil is spoken by 3,424,107 (78.8%), followed by Telugu by 419,209 (9.7%), Urdu by 180,245 (4.1%), Malayalam by 113,828 (2.6%), Hindi by 104,084 (2.4%), and Kannada by 22,250 (0.5%). Korean, Japanese, French, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, German and Spanish are some of the languages spoken by the 250,000 foreign expatriates residing in the city.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai, along with Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi, is one of the few Indian cities that are home to a diverse population of ethno-religious communities. Minorities include Telugus, Marwaris, Gujaratis, Parsis, Sindhis, Odias, Goans, Kannadigas, Anglo-Indians, Bengalis, Punjabi, and Malayalees. As per the religious census of 2011, Chennai's population was 80.73% Hindu, 9.45% Muslim, 7.72% Christian, 1.11% Jain, 0.06% Sikh, 0.06% Buddhist, <0.04% followed other religions and 0.83% followed no religion or did not indicate any religious preference.


title: Chennai

text: In a 2013 survey titled 'Emerging trends in real estate in Asia Pacific 2014', Chennai emerged in the top 25 real estate destinations list in the Asia Pacific region. The city ranked 22nd in the list. There are about 1,240 slums in Chennai home to about 900,000 people.


title: Chennai

text: Per 2011 census, there are 1.1 million households in the city and the residential housing stock available is 1,150,000 – a surplus of about 50,000 houses. About 43,700 of them are kept vacant. In the suburbs of Chennai located in Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, the figures of vacant houses 56,000 and 71,000, respectively. Of the existing housing stock in the city, about 200,000 houses are not in good condition, necessitating either to rebuild or build new units. About 26,000 households live in houses without any room and another 427,000 families (with an average size of five members) live in small dwelling units with only one room. An earlier estimate shows that there is a need to generate about 420,000 units for low-income groups by 2016.


title: Chennai

text: , an estimated population of 11,116 (0.16 percent) were homeless. Per Supreme Court guidelines, the city needs 65 shelters for the homeless. However, it has only 15, of which eight are functioning and two are under renovation.


title: Chennai

text: As of 2017, there are more than 2.2 million households, with 40 percent of the residents not owning a house.


title: Chennai

text: Chennai is home to many museums, galleries, and other institutions, many of which are free of admission charges and are major tourist attractions as well as playing a research role. The city also has one of the oldest museums and art galleries in the countryGovernment Museum, Chennai and The National Art Gallery (Chennai), established in the early 18th century.


title: Chennai

text: The city also hosts two art festivals annually. The "Fort Museum" inside the premises of Fort St. George is an important museum having a noteworthy collection of objects of the British era in its collection. The museum is managed by the Archaeological Survey of India and has in its possession, the first Flag of India hoisted at Fort St George after the declaration of India's Independence on 15 August 1947.