Report to de Gaulle he insists has become today more historic than political

Visit the historic headquarters of the BBC, interview with prince Charles, deposits of wreaths, visit to the former headquarters of General de Gaulle in London, meeting with veterans, speeches, lunch with Prime Minister David Cameron, before returning to Paris for new deposits of wreaths and ceremony at mont Valérien. While the Government loop its painful pension reform, Nicolas Sarkozy has chosen today devote most of his day to the commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of the appeal of June 18. An event highly publicized, although only away from the current concerns of opinion.

This sudden fervor for the head of the free France is even more unexpected than Nicolas Sarkozy, in the rather liberal image and Atlanticist, never quite openly claimed the legacy of the General. The UMP, which is still defined as a Gaullist movement, is the successor of the RPF or Nur distant. And the crisis gave the taste of the day the role of the State and the dear interventionism to the founder of the VeRépublique. But the President "has built in break with Jacques Chirac, who best embodies the ideas of Charles de Gaulle in the eyes of the French, said Jérôme Fourquet, Deputy Director of the Department opinion of FIFG." And he instead called memories resistance than those of the founder of the Fifth Republic at the beginning of its mandate, with his pilgrimage to the Glières plateau and the reading of the letter from Guy Môquet in high schools.

A battle shifted

For many, this celebration with great pomp of the appeal of 18 June was mainly like Burnout before launch, Saturday, movement policy of Dominique de Villepin, the great rival of the head of State to the right man for the "no" to the war in Iraq to the United Nations. No question of leaving former Prime Minister Jacques Chirac preempt the Gaullist niche to the right. The strategy of diversion is even wider. The Secretary General of the UMP, Xavier Bertrand, today went on the tomb of the General, to Colombey-les-deux-Eglises. Monday, François Fillon is to Montluc prison in Lyon, to commemorate the arrest of Jean Moulin, June 21, 1943. Last weekend, the keeper of the seals, Michèle Alliot-Marie, who said federate with the oak club, "the Gaullists of renewal", gave a long interview to the "Sunday Journal" on "De Gaulle, Louis XI and us". Tuesday, Nicolas Sarkozy has lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Paris with Jacques Chirac, that it does are yet not deprive regularly criticize in little pine terms. And the Secretary of State for employment Laurent Wauquiez, has just launched a small takeover bid on the "social Gaullism", somewhat orphaned since the disappearance of Philippe Séguin and clearly lorgné by Dominique de Villepin.

This battle on the legacy of the General appears all the more offset that, "the Gaullist reference is more relevant for a minority of French", says Jérôme Fourquet. According to a survey of its Institute for "jdd" Gaullism "does mean more little" 45 of the interviewees and represents "a stream of ideas beyond" 28 of the public. "Report to de Gaulle, he insists, has become today more historic than political."