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The de Gaulle family produced several 20th-century officers, Resistance members, and French politicians.
There is a widespread notion claiming that the particle in "de Gaulle" is derived from a dialectal form of the article (it should logically be written De Gaulle, for one writes Le Châtelier, but usage has always favoured the lowercase form). However, the genealogy of this ancient bourgeois family, established by the general's grandfather, Julien Philippe de Gaulle, alumnus of the École Nationale des Chartes, shows that his ancestors, capitaines-châtelains of Cuisery, Saône-et-Loire in the 17th century, have always written their name in this way.
Note: This family tree is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather aims to show the principal public figures of Charles de Gaulle's family.
François Charles Mauriac was a French novelist, dramatist, critic, poet, and journalist, a member of the Académie française, and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1952). He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur in 1958. He was a life-long Catholic.
Pierre Joseph Auguste Messmer was a French Gaullist politician. He served as Minister of Armies under Charles de Gaulle from 1960 to 1969 – the longest serving since Étienne François, duc de Choiseul under Louis XV – and then as Prime Minister under Georges Pompidou from 1972 to 1974. A member of the French Foreign Legion, he was considered one of the historical Gaullists, and died aged 91 in the military hospital of the Val-de-Grâce in August 2007. He was elected a member of the Académie française in 1999; his seat was taken over by Simone Veil.
Pierre Brossolette was a French journalist, politician and major hero of the French Resistance in World War II.
Jacques Chaban-Delmas was a French Gaullist politician. He served as Prime Minister under Georges Pompidou from 1969 to 1972. He was the Mayor of Bordeaux from 1947 to 1995 and a deputy for the Gironde département between 1946 and 1997.
Michel Jean-Pierre Debré was the first Prime Minister of the French Fifth Republic. He is considered the "father" of the current Constitution of France. He served under President Charles de Gaulle from 1959 to 1962. In terms of political personality, Debré was intense and immovable and had a tendency to rhetorical extremism.
Vincent Jules Auriol was a French politician who served as President of France from 1947 to 1954.
Le Plus Grand Français de tous les temps was a France 2 show of early 2005, based on an original series of Great Britons on the BBC. The show asked the French viewers whom they thought was the Greatest Frenchman or Frenchwoman. It was presented by Michel Drucker and Thierry Ardisson, and the final episode was broadcast at the French Senate.
Philippe Henri Xavier Antoine de Gaulle is a French retired admiral and senator. He is the eldest child and only son of General Charles de Gaulle, the first president of the French Fifth Republic, and of his wife, Yvonne. He is the only living child of de Gaulle.
The Popular Republican Movement was a Christian-democratic political party in France during the Fourth Republic. Its base was the Catholic vote and its leaders included Georges Bidault, Robert Schuman, Paul Coste-Floret, Pierre-Henri Teitgen and Pierre Pflimlin. It played a major role in forming governing coalitions, in emphasizing compromise and the middle ground, and in protecting against a return to extremism and political violence. It played an even more central role in foreign policy, having charge of the Foreign Office for ten years and launching plans for the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, which grew into the European Union. Its voter base gradually dwindled in the 1950s and it had little power by 1954.
Yvonne Charlotte Anne-Marie de Gaulle was the wife of Charles de Gaulle. The couple had three children: Philippe, Élisabeth (1924–2013), and Anne (1928–1948), who was born with Down syndrome. Yvonne de Gaulle, along with her husband, set up a charity, La fondation Anne-de-Gaulle, to help children with disabilities.
Alain de Boissieu Déan de Luigné was a French general who served in the Free French Forces during World War II, later becoming Army chief of staff (1971–1975). He was the son-in-law of General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French and postwar President of France.
Défense de la France was an underground newspaper produced by a group of the French Resistance during World War II.
Henri Charles Alexandre de Gaulle was a French civil servant and later a schoolteacher. He was the father of Charles de Gaulle, a general of the French army and President of France.
Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz was a member of the French Resistance in World War II, during which she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. After the war, she was president of the charity organisation ATD Quart Monde. Her uncle was General Charles de Gaulle, who served as President of France from 1959 to 1969.
Le Grand Charles is a 2006 French television miniseries on the life of Charles de Gaulle from 1939 to 1959, written and directed by Bernard Stora.
Jean Élie Paul Zay was a French politician. He served as Minister of National Education and Fine Arts from 1936 until 1939. He was imprisoned by the Vichy government from August 1940 until he was murdered in 1944.
The Lycée Sainte-Geneviève is a private lycée, located in Versailles and providing preparatory classes for grandes écoles. It was founded by the Jesuits in Paris in April 1854. It is often nicknamed Ginette and sometimes BJ, standing for Boite à Jèzes.
Roland Laudenbach was a French writer, editor, journalist, literary critic and scenarist. He had right-wing political beliefs aligned with the Action Française. After World War II he supported keeping Algeria part of France and saw the 1962 recognition of Algerian independence as a betrayal of the people by Christian and Socialist leaders. He edited or contributed to various literary and political magazines, wrote several novels, and wrote scripts and screenplays for numerous films.
André Diethelm was born in Bourg-en-Bresse and was a French Resistance fighter and politician. As an Inspector General of Finance, he joined General de Gaulle and Free France during the Second World War, and presided over the Rally of the French People political party under the Fourth Republic.