Word: frenchmen
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Most of all, of course, the general's departure mattered to France. Most Frenchmen woke up in the first days of what might be called A.D. (After De Gaulle) slightly dazed and a little disbelieving at what they had wrought. Some had doubted De Gaulle's resolve when he told them?arbitrarily, as always?that a non vote would really end his rule. Others, long accustomed to the Gaullist unexpected, wondered whether it was really for keeps, or whether De Gaulle might not still somehow come thundering back into the arena. Above all, the French, the inveterately rationalist sons...
...loss. Weary as they are of greatness, the French could not help mourning its passing. No one expressed it better than one of France's most distinguished political writers, Pierre Viansson-Ponté: "Even among his opponents, even among those who campaigned relentlessly for the 'No,' even among those Frenchmen who could no longer stand his self-assurance and his pride, many felt a sudden pang when they thought of him on Sunday night. Thirty years on the stage, sometimes in the glare of the footlights, sometimes in silhouette, eleven years of absolutism, long tempered by his own resolve, later...
...moreover, pleasing fewer and fewer Frenchmen with his foreign policies. Always the product of his personal piques as well as his grand designs, those policies had grown increasingly alien or irrelevant to the world as viewed by ordinary Frenchmen. They often left the impression that the old man was getting erratic. Perhaps the most damaging stance involved the Arabs and Israelis. Though France has only 520,000 Jews, many more French were incensed when De Gaulle extended an earlier arms embargo to include spare-parts shipments to Israel...
...French voters; it radically reshaped France's administration and gave the President vast new powers. He was elected President in the expectation that only he could find a peaceful solution in Algeria. He did, but in a way that outraged French settlers in Algeria and many Frenchmen at home: he offered freedom to the Algerians...
...Frenchmen voted the same way they talked, the impression is that Briare will reject the referendum's proposals. I found only two people, the mayor and an insurance man, who said they would vote yes. Everyone else-workers, farmers, shopkeepers and professional men-said they would either vote no or cast a blank ballot. But Frenchmen have a way of confounding opinion seekers. Pierre Renaud, Briare's pharmacist-tobacconist, perhaps expressed it best. "The French are a funny people. They always complain a lot but usually vote oui." In France, it is the mind that does the talking...