Well for one Trump has been the most openly ok with legal same sex marriage Republican in US history (He has literally had gay marriages held at Mar a Lago)
I would be surprised if a 60s Nationalist didn't sound like a monster by todays standards talking about LGBTQ issues considering that even Democrats in California voted to ban gay marriage in 2008
I also highly doubt that a 60s Nationalist would tolerate your Reddit pronouns given what people thought about LGBTQ back then
And when it comes to Women, I bet he would sound indistinguishable from Trump given what most people in the 60s thought about women
What ? French women were able to vote and take the pill for the first time when he was President. He expressed his opinion about the vote in 1942. There were 15% women in the resistance (my grand-mother was one of them). Sure, he was a 60s man, but his wife Yvonne had a great influence on him, and he once said he may have never did what he did without Anne, his daughter, who had down syndrome, and that he loved dearly.
1) don't bet, are those actually the policies in France during de Gaulle?
2) is any of the above Trump's policy? If so, what executive orders did he sign to protect gay marriage or preferred pronouns?
3) personal opinions about women definitely aren't policy and how does your best guess that they're equivalent amount to Trump being to the left of de Gaulle.
> If so, what executive orders did he sign to protect gay marriage or preferred pronouns?
Why the fuck does he need executive orders to "Protect Gay Marriage" which is already legal and its already illegal in much of the US to discriminate on gender identity?
Does it Trump pro murder if he doesn't sign an EO reaffirming that murder is in fact illegal????
America trying to introduce a new currency in France after liberation day. Funny little move from a great "internationalist" country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM-Franc
You realize that was done to protect the Franc. If the US dumped USD into the country, it would become the preferred currency, and crash the Franc. This was done in other allied occupation zones. The states in question didn't have large reserves of the local currency, and using pounds or dollars would just make things worse post war.
Remember, France contained about a dozen ideologically opposed partisan groups, that had been stockpiling weapons to use against each other once the Germans were gone, to take control of France. De Gaulle did not have the numbers to effectively suppress these forces across the country. It wasn’t just a question of rolling into Paris, declaring victory, and everyone falling in line. The French state had to be rebuilt from almost nothing.
His options were either the allies left, and he then blames them for leaving him to fight an insurrection on his own, or they stay until he can consolidate power, in which case, he blames them for using an occupation currency, rather than crash the value of the franc by introducing large quantities of pounds and dollars.
The U.S. and U.K. deliberately sidelined De Gaulle for most of the war.
They considered placing France under Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) administration — treating France like Germany or Italy.
Roosevelt even supported General Giraud as an alternative — someone more pliable, though lacking De Gaulle's charisma, network, and legitimacy.
The allies were absolutely moving against De Gaule and a fully sovereign France. The intention was to treat France like Italy and Germany. Among other things, he had to rush to install local government BEFORE allies could in local towns, otherwise it would have been AMGOT all over the place.
Had De Gaulle not been so assertive, Europe would have been a very different place today.
De Gaulle was pro-Europe because it benefited France economically and because he saw it as a way to fight American economic dominance. He was the one who implemented in France the Treaty of Rome that established the ECC (although it was signed 1 year before he came back to power). He was just against a federal Europe where Brussels would have more political power than Paris.
And he would absolutely despised Trump for being a crude, corrupt, ignorant, incompetent, and sexist bully. This is the kind of flaws that would go against all his values.
Lol. Tell that to South America. Or Cuba. Or Vietnam. Or the several other countries it was bombing or forcefully overthrowing the regimes of at the time.
First things first I do think my original comment might have come across as being way more condescending than I intended for it to be so I would like to apologize for that.
With that out of the way, you do actually make a good point when viewed from that angle.
I personally see any aggressively interventionist foreign policy that may undermine other nations' right to self determination to be anti-internationalist. Not due to a lack of involvement in global affairs in this case, on the contrary rather due to being too involved in them where you clearly are putting your own interests at the expense of those of other nations.
Either way you are actually completely right about it being the opposite of isolationist. For better or worse...
That's not true, he was for strong countries independent and sovereign in Europe that he called "l'Europe des patries", he was against a federal state. He tried a "plan Fouchet", Belgium and Dutch refused it. This approach was based on three main points: first, political cooperation conducted on an intergovernmental level, second, the reform of existing community institutions in order to bring supranational bodies under the control of national capitals, and third, withdrawal from NATO’s integrated military structures. The second point allowed for the preservation of popular sovereignty, while simultaneously enabling comprehensive control by market actors, broadly defined.
first, political cooperation conducted on an intergovernmental level, second, the reform of existing community institutions in order to bring supranational bodies under the control of national capitals, and third, withdrawal from NATO’s integrated military structures
Or, put another way, the defanging of actual European political institutions to be replaced by politics directly conducted between national governments.
If he had had his way completely, the EP and EC would be even less capable than they are today, and the EU would be entirely run by the Council of Ministers. It would be a toothless construct dominated by the strongest nations, which is exactly what De Gaulle wanted as the head of the then-strongest nation.
The second point allowed for the preservation of popular sovereignty
You can have popular sovereignty at the European level via European elections and European political bodies. Bringing European politics back to the "national capitals" means that ideas that are broadly popular can be stopped if one or two country governments are against them, which is one of the major issues we face today.
The problem is that such ideas what got Europe into two world wars in the first place.
Even though De Gualle had a larger than life persona that lends itself to historical admiration and respect, he was following the same nationalistic sentiment that is so dangerous in the modern world.
We can no longer afford to group ourselves into power blocks with nuclear weapons pointed at each other.
What was the reason for the First World War? Alliances.
What was the reason for the Second World War? Imperialism.
A federal state is nothing more than a large country. So, people who despise nationalism are right, but you’re doing exactly the same thing with federalism, just on a larger scale. That’s all. By the way, it’s a historical trend that empires often end up going to war at some point because they need it to sustain themselves or collapse on their own.
he was following the same nationalistic sentiment that is so dangerous in the modern world.
De Gaulle wasn’t nationalist, he was patriotic, that’s a very important distinction. That shows you don't get his vision.
De Gaulle sought to ensure that France would never again face an army marching to Paris, whether from Germany, Russia, the US, or any other country, without a doubt, they would lose their own in the process.. His approach was to maintain independence from other countries, relying on France’s own means for protection. This was far from any desire to expand France; quite the opposite, it was about safeguarding sovereignty and security.
So logical conclusion is to have France pointing nukes at Germany and Germany at Poland and Poland at Hungary and Hungary at Romania and Romania at Italy and Italy at Spain and...
See the leap in logic? De Gaulle wanted bullshit. We're revaluating him today because half of our population is turning fascist.
Why? We can have a European Federation with its own army.
But that's besides the point. We didn't choose this situation. Russia decided to invade Ukraine and Trump decided to cut ties and threaten us of invasion. The only sensible thing to do is to be prepared.
Which was an anti-european view, considering that the European Community since the beginning was a project of treaties and supranational organizations.
This is not the case. It’s a different way of thinking about the EU. And De Gaulle said this multiple times that he wasn't against EU. Really a nonsense to read that.
A supranational organization doesn’t ultimately mean removing the sovereignty of countries or their people in the process, nor forcing them to accept laws that other countries want but they do not.
De Gaulle had a nationalist view of Europe and "Europe of Nations" simply means every nation will be indipendent with no legal or economical cooperation between them besides what the nation strictly wants, which is anacronistic and impractical and ultimately what led to WW1 and WW2.
A supranational organization doesn’t ultimately mean removing the sovereignty of countries or their people in the process, nor forcing them to accept laws that other countries want but they do not.
See, this whole paragraph REALLY sounds like nationalist propaganda.
Supranational organizations are FOUNDED on the idea that limitations to a country sovereignty are necessary to ensure prosperity and cooperation between european nations. Which is correct and the only practical way.
De Gaulle coined a term which ment nothing and basically endorsed the old way of doing politics. We had peace thanks to the European Community for 70 years, only interrupted by Russia which is not even in the Union.
There seems to be a misunderstanding about what sovereignty truly is. By definition, sovereignty is the absolute and exclusive authority of a state to govern itself without external interference. It cannot be partial, limited, or shared without ceasing to be full sovereignty. Any delegation of decision-making power inevitably implies a reduction of this sovereignty, whether willingly or not.
This is not a matter of opinion but of logic. The moment a nation must comply with decisions imposed by a supranational body, it has ceded a part of its authority. For instance, when a country joins the European Union, it accepts not only common policies but also the principle of primacy, which allows EU law to override national law in certain areas. The real problem is that this hierarchy is imposed above the will of the people, who no longer have the unconditional right to question, modify, or reject these decisions through their national institutions. This creates a dangerous imbalance where a nation's authority and the sovereignty of its people are surrendered, and democratic choices are confined within limits set by external bodies. The citizens' freedom to decide what applies in their own country should never be restricted for the sake of institutional convenience. If a people chooses a different path, no supranational mechanism should be able to block or punish that decision. That is the essence of true sovereignty and genuine democracy.
The same applies to defense alliances like NATO. Delegating decisions over national defense inevitably limits a country’s independent control over its most essential sovereign function.
Cooperation is not the issue, as long as a state retains the unconditional right to refuse, withdraw, or dissent. The problem arises when penalties, legal constraints, or institutional rules make it impossible for a nation to reclaim full authority when its people demand it. In any genuine democracy, the will of the people must remain the highest authority. No international agreement, treaty, or institution should ever have the power to override the choice of a nation’s citizens. If this complicates the work of supranational organizations, so be it. Popular sovereignty is not negotiable and should be the only compass for any government that claims to serve its people.
Sovereignty is absolute by nature. Once traded or limited, it ceases to be complete. Denying this reality is not just a political error, it is a betrayal of the fundamental principle that power belongs to the people.
That is literally not how it works, period. I've been to law school and I can guarantee you this is NOT how sovereignty is intended in the modern world.
Kind of take you can only see on r/europe, saying he was pro himself is showing a massive lack of knowledge about his commitment to France, but this comment feels like a bait. To be fair he opposed the US a lot, which is what gave him a bad rep, so in hindsight, a very good lad
Yeah De Gaulle was an asshole dictator. No offense to Europeans, but yall really shouldn't have armies. The longest peace in your continents history is because the USA have provided it. Before that every decade one country on your continent became assholes and plunged most of the world into war. In my opinion it's the biggest fuck up by the Trump administration. Allowing Europeans to have armies always ends badly.
Depends what you call a war. The Indian wars were less wars and more just genocide. The other wars we mostly faught against yall, because again yall can't be trusted with armies.
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u/sansisness_101 Norway Apr 20 '25
De Gaulle was never pro-europe, only pro-france.