Charles de Gaulle

De Gaulle believed himself to have been invested with an exceptional mission (“it was left for me to take France upon myself,” he wrote in his memoirs), and he dominated French politics for 30 years. Swathed in the prestige that his stand during World War II conferred on him, de Gaulle identified himself with the “eternal France”, and claimed a historical legitimacy in pursuing his aims—the guarantee of French grandeur and the power of the nation. In some respects he had inherited the legacy of Bonapartism, for example in his use of referendums that seemed to raise the president above political parties. In turn, De Gaulle left as his legacy the constitution of the Fifth Republic, according to which France is still governed, and the Gaullist political movement, to which Jacques Chirac was the heir.