How tall was de gaulle

De Gaulle was around 6'4" at his peak. Data collected more or less from Wikipedia and some other sources. Expect a slight discrepancy from real life. Published May 18, By Editorial Team. About Charles De Gaulle's Height Charles De Gaulle was a huge man - even by today's standard, but for his time - he was veritably a giant. The height of Charles De Gaulle was 6'4" or cm Charles de Gaulle: a big man through and through For reference, here is the average human height around the world.

Country Male Female Indonesia 5'4" 4'11" India 5'5. His refusal to clarify his own position on the Algerian question created a vacuum in the election of November, , into which rushed the vociferous champions of Algerian integration. Since the Sphinx would not speak, they would speak for it. The result was that incredible spectacle of a raggle-taggle caravan of genuine Gaullists, die-hard chauvinists, and carpetbagging ramp followers who rode into the Assembly brandishing the tricolor of integration and noisily proclaiming their eternal love of General de Gaulle, and the no less incredible dismay evinced by the General before the sweeping success of his own supporters.

As the General could not repudiate his own followers overnight, ten months had to pass before he could finally undertake to make it clear, as he did in a speech in September, , that the future of Algeria must be settled by the Algerians themselves in a free vote. Even then, four more months and an abortive putsch in Algiers were needed to force him to come out definitely and to state what had been his conviction all along: that the Muslims are not Bretons or Alsatians a phrase he had used long before his return to power , that Algerian integration was a utopian hope, and that site only feasible solution as an Algeria associated with France.

In retrospect, it seems clear that he missed a historic opportunity in the autumn of , immediately, after his impressive referendum triumph of September, in not inviting the Sultan of Morocco and Bourguiba of Tunisia to Paris to help lay the groundwork for a possible long-term solution of the Algerian problem along federal Swiss or Lebanese lines, which he could have taken to the country for approval in the elections of that November and which he might eventually have been able to negotiate with the rebel leaders in Tunis.

Such an initiative might well have precipitated an uprising in Algiers similar to that which was touched off last January by the removal of General Massu; but there can be little doubt today that the great mass of the French people and a sizable portion of the army would have reacted to such an event as they did last January—by lining up behind De Gaulle.

The General would have gained a whole year that was dissipated in ambiguous statements and governmental cross-purposes, which have had the unfortunate result, with the Muslims in Algeria and with the F. No conceivable course of action could have been exempt of risk. It must also be said, in the General's defense, that the Arab rebels have done little to aid him in a thankless task.

One of the tragedies of the Algerian conflict is that it has been unable to produce a Makarios, still less a Bourguiba, invested with the prestige needed to channel the destructive forces of a ravage revolt toward a feasible diplomatic or political solution; all it has brought forth is an insecure leadership, which has usually been too frightened to meet De Gaulle halfway or to renounce publicly its murderous vendetta with the rival Muslim independence movement of Messali Hadj, for fear of being denounced as selling out to the enemy by the combatants in the field.

And so today the task of ending an interminable war is heaped more than ever on the lonely head of Charles de Gaulle. Destiny seems to have decreed that he must carry his country's cross to an end which is more likely to be bitter than glorious. This spectacle has in it some of the inexorability of Greek tragedy, as though the avenging Furies were not to be cheated of the vengeance they would wreak on this egregious mortal for his overweening ambition.

Now it is my friend. With what other should one content oneself when one has made a rendezvous with history? These solemn words were premature, for that exalted encounter is not yet finished.

Nor can one say for sure just how it will end. But should it end in tragedy, it will be more than one man's lot; it will be that of an entire people.

For, in his heroic failings as in his virtues, Charles de Gaulle is typical of France. It has been France's peculiar lot—not once, but twice in two decades—to have brought forth in the supreme hour of need not a leader of men, but a man of ideas; not a practical politician, like a Clemenceau or a Churchill, but a visionary seer; not a man of action, but a man of the mind, who by an awesome effort of will made himself into a man of the sword.

Only too often, indeed, it has seemed as though for the General the art of political leadership was not so much a matter of action as of representation, less a question of energetic decision than of dramatic pretense.

For France's long-term problems, he has provided not genuine solutions but tranquilizing palliatives. The Algerian problem continues to fester, and in the bellicose climate it engenders, all sorts of evils and abuses continue virtually unchecked, from torture and intimidation in Algeria to utterly arbitrary sciences of critical newspapers and weeklies in Paris. The new Constitution is so full of ambiguities and contradictions that, though unquestionably an improvement over its predecessor, it is not expected to outlast the man for whom it was tailor-made.

The French Community, which the General launched in a rather precipitous fashion and on the risky assumption that it could be established prior to and apart from a solution of the Algerian question, has all but burst apart at the seams. Even France's economic and financial stability owes as much to the programs and initiatives undertaken by governments which immediately preceded De Gaulle's—notably Felix Gaillard's program as Finance Minister and Jean Monnet's trip to Washington in January of —as to the orthodox financial policies which Antoine Pinay imposed on a General who has always been socialistically inclined in his economic beliefs.

So, too, the exploitation of the oil of the Sahara and the development of an atomic bomb owe their realization, at least in part, to earlier governments' initiatives. Only in the foreign, and particularly European, field—and this is the one area of government in which De Gaulle is truly interested—has the General given France's policy a personal impulse, direction, and steadfastness of purpose worthy of a Clemenceau or a Richelieu.

We can only hope that the Cassandras are bring too somber in their pessimistic predictions. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword.

Sign In Subscribe. One summer, as his way back from London and before taking the boat from Valencia to Naples, he had stopped off in Portugal. He had given much thought to the decline of this nation whose empire had once girdled the globe. The work, published by Dr Gregg Murray and J.

David Schmitz, found evidence that would suggest physical stature affects people's preferences for political leadership. The paper entitled 'Caveman Politics' on evolutionary psychology relates it back to ideas and beliefs gleaned from our prehistoric ancestors.

Well, apart from Cameron, Obama and Canada's Stephen Harper who all come in at over six foot there are some current political leaders who are rather more diminutive. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is placed at somewhere around the 5ft 2ins mark. America certainly seem to be following the rule with all but one of the US presidents in our list coming in at six foot or over. The table below shows a selection of world leaders, past and present, and their stature.

Those in bold are current leaders. More data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian. Turn autoplay off Turn autoplay on. President of the French Republic 8 January to 28 April Has his look-alike puppet in the French show Les Guignols de l'info although it's rarely utilized.

His namesake grandson represents France in the European Parliament as a member of the National Front party. Anne, who had Down's syndrome, died at the age of His name is synonymous with a political philosophy, "Gaullism" from the French "Gaullisme" , an ideology based on his thoughts and actions that is still current powerful in France.

The serving president, Jacques Chirac, is a Gaullist. Gaullism's central tenet is a desire for France to remain independent of influence from a foreign power.

In foreign policy, national independence is stressed, with some degree of opposition to international organizations such as NATO. De Gaulle believed that France should not rely on any foreign country for its survival thus the creation of the French nuclear deterrent and that France should refuse subservience to any foreign power, be it the U.

De Gaulle's policies of grandeur - the insistence that France is a major power in the world scene and military and economic forces to back this claim - also is part of Gaullism. The foreign policy of France was influenced by Gaullism even when Gaullists were not in power.

Gaullism typically is equated with social conservatism, and it is generally considered a right-wing ideology, but there have also been left-wing Gaullists, the differences between the two consisting of differing social and economic policies. Gaullism has sometimes been characterized as a form of populism, since de Gaulle relied heavily on his personal charisma in the political realm. De Gaulle was descended, on his father's side, from a long line of aristocracy from Normandy and Burgundy which had been settled in Paris for about a century, whereas his mother's family were rich entrepreneurs from the industrial region of Lille in French Flanders.

The most ancient de Gaulle ancestor recorded was a squire of King Philip Augustus in the 12th century. The name de Gaulle is thought to have evolved from a Germanic form "De Walle" meaning "the wall". Most of the ancient French nobility descended from Germanic lineages and often bore Germanic names. The heads of State attended a simultaneous service held at Notre-Dame Cathedral.