The head of the French resistance during the Second World War, author of the latest French
constitution, and Savior of France during multiple crises; Charles De Gaulle was, in modern terms,
an archetypical badass. The perfect amalgamation of legendary patriotism and modern bravery,
Charles De Gaulle is considered in history as the national pride
of France. But one cannot make ‘Omelet au Fromage’ without breaking some eggs.
And De Gaulle was no exception to this rule though even if his headstrong decisions
saved France multiple times from collapsing. Not everybody was happy with his idea of leadership
and there were several attempts on his life that went down in history as haunting. Today,
Nutty History brings you some of De Gaulle’s closest encounters with near death experiences.
Soon after France was liberated from the clutches of Nazi Germany in 1944, General De Gaulle decided
to celebrate the occasion at the West African port city of Dakar. As the city’s administrator,
De Gaulle was standing at attention on the deck of the cruiser Georges Leygues while the band played
the "Marseillaise", the French national anthem. In that moment, a French sailor raised his rifle
and drew a bead on the general. De Gaulle would have been killed, but the sailor failed to shoot
as the officer next to him, disarmed and knocked him down. That was a boss move. The
murderous sailor was just one of the many petty officers who considered De Gaulle a usurper,
and a British stooge. This misconception about De Gaulle stemmed from the fact that De Gaulle
spent most of the French occupation by Nazi forces as an exile in Great Britain. However, De Gaulle
had no choice, when the French army surrendered to Hitler’s invasion in 1940, none of the other
leading officers of France agreed with De Gaulle on continuing the fight. If he hadn’t fled at that
moment, he would have been executed, killing the last of the French rebellion along with himself.
Despite leading French forces in the war against the colony of Algeria,
when De Gaulle was elected as President of France in 1959, he chose a pro-Algerian
independence approach. This roughed up a lot of feathers among the right wing in the French
population who accused De Gaulle of betraying the nation. On the night of September 8th 1961,
President Charles De Gaulle was traveling with his wife to their country home. Near the village
in a town called Crancey, a wired petrol bomb planted in a sandpile exploded a bit prematurely.
Their car turned sharply as the explosion threw a sheet of flame across the roadway. Before the
chauffeur Marroux could apply breaks, De Gaulle ordered “FASTER!”. The car was already swerving at
70 miles per hour but the President insisted his chauffeur drive straight for the inferno. Marroux,
looked at the ring of fire in front of him and chose to press the gas instead of the breaks.
The car sped through the flames and everyone in it came out on the other side absolutely unhurt.
De Gaulle’s judgment on the matter of Algerian Independence hasn’t only caused ripples among
extremist citizens but the army and, if sources to be believed, among people on the other side of the
pond. The concern among the opponents of De Gaulle was Algeria falling into the communists’ hands
while America’s disapproval came from the fact that losing hold on Algeria
would mean losing Algerian oil reserves. And so, the CIA got involved in a coup against the De
Gaulle government. Allen Dulles, Director of the CIA hatched the plan of treason against De Gaulle
with few retired French generals led by a staunch De Gaulle supporter, General Maurice Challe. The
CIA also threw in right-wing French extremists and Nazi sympathizers to the mix just to get
the recipe of the coup right. After seizing power in Algeria on Saturday, April 21, 1961,
they sent down two thousand paratroopers to Paris to arrest or assassinate the president.
De Gaulle called for immediate support from France’s army and citizens over the radio
and tv while the French Press accused the CIA of sponsoring this attempt of overthrowing democracy
in France. The immense pressure from French and American media forced Dulles
to not only deny all accusations of the USA’s involvement in France’s political situation
but also made them back out of any aid they were providing to the team of rebels.
French army men and Civilians showed nothing but hostility and resilience to the perpetrators and
their sympathizing soldiers. This reaction from a united France not only quashed an
assassination and insurgency attempt but also saved their country from a probable civil war.
Launched in 1955, the Citroen DS was perhaps President Charles De Gaulle’s favorite car.
The President was riding in this very car when his life was threatened by a bomb explosion in 1959.
Already triumphant in the “trial by fire” --- Citroen DS once again proved its worth in 1962
when president De Galle was on his way to Orly Airport. The OAS, a French terrorist group formed
in retaliation against Algeria’s liberation had planned an ambush on 22nd of August at the Avenue
de la Liberation. A dozen gunmen open fired at the black Citroen DS as soon as the car appeared.
A hailstorm of a hundred and forty machine gun rounds, mostly shot from behind, were fired at
the car as President and his wife ducked and the chauffeur Marroux tried to speed away.
The shooting killed two bodyguards and popped three tires as the car skidded out of control
and almost collided with another automobile. Talk about taking one for the team,
all of this upheaval left a small scratch on Charles De Gaulle’s finger, caused by the careless
brushing of his coat to get rid of the splintered glass. Oh he’s all that. Since the Algiers Putsch,
the relationship between De Gaulle and the CIA kept getting bitter. The tension peaked once more
after US president Kennedy’s assassination. Kennedy and De Gaulle were close friends but the
affiliation cooled off after the coup attempt against his government. When De Gaulle voiced
his disagreements about the Vietnam war, the CIA tried to kill Charles De Gaulle once more with a
poisoned ring. But the soldier wearing the ring never reached anywhere close to the President.
The last known attempt to kill the president was made on July 1,
1966, as De Gaulle drove to Orly Airport to fly to the Soviet Union. A group of students,
formerly of the National Resistance Council, planted a car laden with almost a ton of dynamite
in the Boulevard Montparnasse within inches of where the president will actually pass. However,
when the opportunity presented itself, none of the students were there to press the detonator.
Why? Because the young students were arrested the night after a robbery attempt. They couldn’t get
out of their own way. President De Gaulle went on to retire from politics and live a healthy life
for a short while until a vein rupture caused by a heart attack killed him in his armchair.
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