De Gaulle has been dead for a decade. Long live, therefore, de Gaulle.
It is a suitable epigraph for this moment in French history. The Fifth Republic has been in place since the General created it in 1958. The election of a new president will only confirm the endurance of Gaullist institutions which, though they prick and chafe occasionally, continue to serve the historical and economic requirements of the country. And the Republic, as it used to be said rather more ominously about the Empire, is at peace.
Comments