Fifth Republic
In April 1958 Bidault again became prime minister but did not form a cabinet and had a hand in forming the conservative Christian Democratic Movement. He also supported De Gaulle's presidency after the outbreak of the Algerian War of Independence.
In 1961 Bidault became President of the Executive Council of the Rally for French Algeria and opposed De Gaulle's policy of Algerian independence. He established his own National Resistance Council within the far-right paramilitary organization Organisation de L'Armée Secrète (OAS). In June 1962 he was accused of conspiring against the state and stripped of his parliamentary immunity. He left for exile in Brazil. In 1967 he moved to Belgium and in 1968 returned to France after benefiting from an amnesty.
In his political memoirs, Bidault states that he was never involved in the OAS, and is not qualified to give any precise information about its heroic deeds.
Bidault died of a stroke in Cambo-les-Bains in January 1983.
Read more about this topic: Georges Bidault
Famous quotes containing the word republic:
“Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come from? Who gave him permission to cram the Republic with his execrable daubs?”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)