President de Gaulle and the “Régime of Misfortune”
| Author | John C. Cairns |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206301800105 |
| Date | 01 March 1963 |
| Published date | 01 March 1963 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
President
de
Gaulle
and
the
"Regime
of
Misfortune"
John
C.
Cairns*
T
this
moment Charles
de
Gaulle
looks
like
the
greatest
vote-getter
in
recent
times. In
his
seventy-second
year
he
has
topped
off
his
unparalleled
success
in
bringing
the
ap-
parently
insoluble
Algerian
fiasco
to
an
end
with
an
electoral
triumph
which
has
left
the
political
commentators
naked
to
his
scorn.
To
the
very
end,
as
the
elections
approached,
the
political
opposition
calculated
that
at
last
the
President
was
about to
be
brought
to
book.
The
result
was
dismay
and
panic
following
the
first
round
of
balloting,
November
18,
which
turned
to
shocked
disbelief
as
the
extent
of
the
Gaullist
victory
throughout
the
country
became
clear
in
the
aftermath
of
the
second
round, November
25.
Carrying
some
275
proclaimed
followers
of
the President
into
the
new
National
Assembly
(234
belonging
to
the
mainline
UNR (Union
for the
New
Republic)
and
UDT
(Democratic
Union
of
Labour);
41
pledged
from
the
otherwise
opposition
Independents,
Radicals
and
MRP
(Popular
Republican
Movement)),
the
Gaullist
wave
has shattered
the
traditional
Right
and
bruised
the
Catholic
centre
(MRP)
to
establish
the
General's
curious
"party"
in
majority
control
of
the
lower
house.
Such
control
has
been unknown
since
parties
in
the
modern
and
more
or
less
disciplined
sense
have
been
known
in
France.
And
the
irony
of
it
all
is
that
it
has
been
brought
about
by a man
who
despises
the
notion
of
party,
who
nevertheless
once
engaged
in
a
disastrous
attempt
to
create
a
party
(RPF,
Rally
of
the
French
People)
which
he
could
not
bring
himself
to
call
a
party,
and,
who,
in
the
November
1962
elections,
again
refused
to
name
the
UNR
although
by inference
he
sought support
directly
for
it.
Looking
back
on
it
all
now, even
from
this
short
distance,
it
appears
that
while
the
Algerian
war
approached
its
end
and,
*Department
of
History,
University
of
Toronto.
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