Branca, the author who writes extensively on De Gaulle, said the movie resonated strongly with the country’s current political situation, marked by instability and a deep fragmentation, including because it highlighted the importance of legitimacy in politics. There are currently more than 30 already declared or likely candidates in next year’s election, a number inversely proportional to the French population’s declining trust in their politicians.
“[Collaborationist regime] Vichy was legal,[but] De Gaulle was legitimate,” he said.
That legitimacy was rooted in his refusal to stop fighting and accept the humiliating defeat inflicted by the German army, which swept over the country and brought it to its knees in the Battle of France in the spring of 1940.
While France isn’t currently at war, the widely held perception that its leaders are either incompetent or incapable of placing public interest above their individual ambitions is fueling voter dissatisfaction and the rise of populist figures like Mélenchon and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
Le Pen hasn’t publicly commented on the film, but prominent figures from her party, the National Rally, have hailed it. MEP Pierre-Romain Thionnet, posting from a movie theater, said on X it was “written with a French heart.”
French-American standoff
The movie also highlights the standoff between De Gaulle, then an isolated undersecretary of state in exile, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who doesn’t share British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s fondness for the French resistance leader. Roosevelt, appalled by France’s military defeat, saw De Gaulle as an obstacle to his own plans to fight the Axis powers and prepare for D-Day.
“From the moment the Americans step into the war, they want to do it in the best possible conditions. Dealing with a France that is … not united makes things difficult for them,” said Guillaume Lasconjarias, a military historian at the Institute for Higher National Defense Studies.