It took a long time for de Gaulle to become ‘de Gaulle’ | Hacker News Reader

It took a long time for de Gaulle to become ‘de Gaulle’

spectator.co.uk

42 pointsallthebest10 comments

On the international stage, de Gaulle had a strong drive to have France stand on its own, following the humiliation of the capitulation during WW2. As a result, he pushed for some policies whose impact we still feel today:

- During Bretton Woods, he directed his delegates to maximize the allowance France had to buy back gold with American dollars, and use it to its full extent. This eventually led to Nixon abolishing the Gold Standard, turning the dollar a fiat currency. [1] To this day, France is the 4th largest hoarder of gold.

- He pushed for nuclear development, founding the CEA (Nuclear Energy Commission) in 1945, and pushing for an independent nuclear deterrent against the USSR. Today, nuclear power provides 40% of France's electricity needs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock

> Today, nuclear power provides 40% of France's electricity needs.

40% of France's total energy needs (including transport) but 76% of its electricity production.

In 1961 he established as well the CNES, who launched several rockets [1] and was a stepstone for the ESRO/ESA. The CNES as of April 2018, has the second largest national budget—€2.334 billion—of all the world's civilian space programs, after only NASA[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamant

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNES

> for an independent nuclear deterrent against the USSR

against everyone

Surprisingly, France has the worlds third largest nuclear arsenal at 300 weapons.

Why is that surprising? Until the 90s France had a nuclear triad, but the land component was dropped. We used to have more warheads, but still need quite a few to keep global coverage through submarines and aircrafts...

It's surprising because China has a billion people and a bunch of competing regional interests. Since WWII, the PRC has been at war or had armed conflict with India, Vietnam, the ROC, the UN (Korean war) and the USSR. There are also the ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea and continued border unrest on the Indian border.

France doesn't have any significant regional disputes around territory and hasn't been to war with its neighbours in about 75 years.

Yet France still has more nuclear warheads than China (officially, at least).

China is not surrounded by rivals, its also never been conquered. The chinese do not have the same existential fear that france does.

And he was probably the only French politician who could convince his people to make peace and even become friends with Germany. If a general who spent a large part of his life fighting Germany could do it, anyone in France could do it.

FYI: the book reviewed here is called A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle in the British edition [1], but simply De Gaulle in the American one.[2]

In both cases, the book is by Julian Jackson.

[1] https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/178767/a-certain-idea-of-fra...

[2] http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674987210

Reply on news.ycombinator.com