Charles de Gaulle - 1958: Collapse of The Fourth Republic

1958: Collapse of The Fourth Republic

Further information: May 1958 crisis

The Fourth Republic was tainted by political instability, failures in Indochina and inability to resolve the Algerian question. It did, however, pass the 1956 loi-cadre Deferre which granted independence to Tunisia and Morocco, while the Premier Pierre Mendès-France put an end to the Indochina War through the Geneva Conference of 1954. Under Guy Mollet, while he survived the 1956 Suez Crisis, French prestige suffered a humiliating defeat with the forced withdrawal from Egypt under international pressure.

On 13 May 1958, settlers seized the government buildings in Algiers, attacking what they saw as French government weakness in the face of demands among the 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 the Army and its leaders".

Under the pressure of Massu, Salan declared Vive de Gaulle! from the balcony of the Algiers Government-General building on 15 May. De Gaulle answered two days later that he was ready to "assume the powers of the Republic". Many worried as they saw this answer as support for the army.

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".

The crisis deepened as French paratroops from Algeria seized Corsica and a landing near Paris was discussed (Operation Resurrection). 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. On 29 May the French President, René Coty, appealed to the "most illustrious of Frenchmen" to confer with him and to examine what was immediately necessary for the creation of a government of national safety, and what could be done to bring about a profound reform of the country's institutions.

De Gaulle remained intent on replacing the constitution of the Fourth Republic, which he blamed for France's political weakness. He set as conditions for his return that he be given wide emergency powers for six months and that a new constitution be proposed to the French people. On 1 June 1958, de Gaulle became Premier and was given emergency powers for six months by the National Assembly, fulfilling his desire for parliamentary legitimacy.

On 28 September 1958, a referendum took place and 79.2 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, at the cost of the immediate ending of all French assistance.

According to de Gaulle, the head of state should represent "the spirit of the nation" to the nation itself and to the world: "une certaine idée de la France" (a certain idea of France).