
June 26, 2014
In 1950, Charles de Gaulle, head of the Free French Forces during World War II and for a brief period provisional president of France, was still trying to figure out how to transform himself from military leader to peacetime politician. He made this speech in Sochaux near my hometown. And though "le Grand Charles," by his voice and stature before this imposing Croix de Lorraine, made quite an impression, he would still have to wait eight more years before becoming president again.