Charles de Gaulle on the Olympic Games
From "C'était de Gaulle"
On elevating Youth and Sports to a Ministry
Salon doré, June 12, 1963.
Maurice Herzog made his debut in the Council of Ministers today. One can anticipate a journalist's question:
AP: “Why did you wish for Maurice Herzog, the High Commissioner for Youth and Sports, to be elevated to the rank of Secretary of State?”
CDG: “It is useful for youth and sports to be represented in the Council of Ministers.”
A silence, then he continues:
CDG: “Herzog has worked for the standing of France. He was the first to climb a peak of over 8,000 meters in the Himalayas, and he lost his hands and feet there.”
His hands and feet: he only believes in witnesses who devote themselves to their faith at all risks—and with complete abandon. “The first”: does he know the epitaph that, on the tomb of Alain Gerbault in Bora-Bora, surrounds a stone globe [Primus circumdedisti me solus — “you were the first to go around me alone”]? Many others have done it since. But he had been the first. He too had “worked for the standing of France.”
The General is obsessed by the rank of France - and that begins with the rank of the French in international competitions. He attaches an importance to these Olympic Games that has surprised more than a few of us. Our pitiful results during the Games of Rome in 1960 affected him: it marked in his eyes the sad summary of the Fourth Republic. He is determined to erase that stain.
On the candidacy of Lyon
Council of September 18th, 1963.
Lyon is a candidate for the Summer Games and Grenoble for the Winter Games of 1968. The General finds it absurd that it is towns and not States who bring forward their candidacy.
“Whereas it is nations which are involved! It is States who must draw the necessary efforts to properly organize the Games!”
But we must naturally bow before the rules of the Olympic Committee. He mumbles: “These are the rules of the Anglo-Saxons! They are imposing them on others!”
He vividly touts the merits of Lyon:
“This is the first time since the war, besides Rome, that the Olympic Games would be held in an area that attracts visitors. Who goes to Helsinki or Melbourne? The entirety of Germany, Switzerland, France, England, Italy will rush for vacation at the Olympic Games of Lyon. We will have to lodge all these people. They will be several millions. We will have to remain firm on the price of bifteck or ham… If Lyon or Grenoble are retained, the reception must be very good.”
(He never says perfect. Perfection, in his eyes, is not of this world.)
“But also, and above all, our athletes must win!”
[…]
Council of February 5, 1964.
Alas, Mexico was preferred over Lyon. At least one can rejoice in a success: “It is fortunate that Grenoble was chosen for the Winter Games.” He worries about the facilities: “Will the slopes be sufficient? Are they far from Grenoble? Everything must be very good.”
He listens, with visible delight, to Herzog commenting on our results at the Winter Games in Innsbruck—three gold medals and four silver medals: “The efforts made since 1960 have paid off. We are achieving unprecedented results for us in the history of the Olympic Games. Traditional practices are being replaced by ultra-modern techniques, wind tunnels to simulate wind resistance, intensive training... The athletes have made a request: to see the General.”
The request is immediately granted. The General is not stingy with compliments for our athletes or for the Secretary of State: “It is an encouragement for all French sports.” But he quickly draws the lesson of state: “The results obtained are those of method and perseverance.”
“And of credits,” adds Pompidou, mockingly.
The General replies sharply: “There are no credits if there are no services to consume them and no willpower to drive the services! All this shows the importance of launching a national effort, which only the State can provoke.”
He adds, with a smile on his lips: “There is nothing more striking than witnessing these performances, even for those who do not claim to participate in them.”
Laughter from my colleagues. More than one thinks of Faizant's cartoon, during the disastrous Rome Games, whose caption has become a refrain: “In this country, if I don't do everything myself...”
On France’s ability to compete versus the giants of the world
Salon doré, after the Council.
AP: “But how can we win against the United States or the Soviet Union? We are no match for them...”
CDG: “The Olympic Games are like grand politics. It is not size, it is not mass that counts the most. It is organization, it is willpower.”
He lifts his head, removes his glasses. I know that he no longer sees me as anything but a gray mass. But what he wants at this moment is not to see me, but for me to see him, without the lenses that age and disfigure him. He wants his face to remain engraved in my memory. I am sure I will never forget this expression:
CDG: “You see, France is no longer a mastodon. It is not on the scale of the two countries that have become such. But it can once again, with its modest dimensions, play the role of a great power. This is what we are in the process of achieving. We benefit in the world from an incomparable moral heritage. The game of France is to place our efforts where they produce the most effect.”
From sports to the deterrence force, one must recognize the coherence of vision and unity of method.
On whether it is merely financial resources that win you medals
After the council meeting.
Does the General fear that I have been influenced by Pompidou? He warns me against the explanation by way of financial credits: “This success, it is the reward for the effort of the State. We have substituted artisanal routines by scientific methods. The State took charge. Initiatives are concerted. If, one day, the State took charge of football, believe me, we would beat the others! But if we must leave it to some random club... we will never win.”
AP: “The occasion is good anyway to show that the credits for sport equipment have been multiplied by ten in five years.”
CDG: “What counts, is that there is a willful policy for youth and sports! There wasn't any. In the sports domain as in any other, when the State sets the course, we obtain sensational results. When it abstains, it goes to shit! This success, it is that of France, it is that of the State. We must have pride of France and pride for the State.”
If he had to manage the Olympic Games, would Richelieu have spoken otherwise?
On the National dimension of the Olympic Games, and getting the French to be proud of France
Council of October 28, 1964.
The Summer Games in Tokyo were less brilliant than the General had hoped: 15 medals, but only one gold. He addresses Herzog: “Why not take into account the winter medals in the performances of each country? Why don't we talk about them? I understand that Reuters and AFP don't talk about them, that doesn't surprise us coming from them. But you? Why don't you talk about them? If we added these medals, it would round out our total!”
At the end of the Council, he strongly urges me to instruct the radio and television to make this addition: “The French must be proud of France.”
On December 2, 1964, Palewski informs the Council that the Americans, Russians, and Japanese have requested permission to observe the solar eclipse of May 30, 1965, from the Polynesian island of Bellingshausen, the only point in the world from which the sun's corona will be visible.
The General gives free rein to his mistrust: “We must verify that no device for detecting and recording our nuclear explosions is installed! A French administrator must be stationed on the island of Bellingshausen, and in each of the foreign missions, at least one French observer must be included.”
Palewski reassures him. The General concludes: “We can take pride in the fact that a French territory is the only one from which the sun can be observed.”
Laughter around the table. The General does not laugh. Did he even intend to be funny?
On September 27, 1963, on the train to Oyonnax.
The General has me sit on the green velvet bench opposite his. We are alone in the compartment. He feels like talking. No doubt he wants to try out some themes on me that he will scatter during his tour:
“You know, France has become quite something. It is something in the United States, precisely because we do not grovel before them. It is something in the world, because the world is increasingly weary of American hegemony. It is something in Africa. The welcome I would receive would be the same at any location: French Africa or British Africa, Black Africa or the Maghreb. And it would be the same in Asia. And in Latin America.”
AP: “Precisely, wouldn't it be useful, to demonstrate the prestige that France has regained, for you to travel more?”
CDG: “One cannot spend one's time wandering around! That's fine when one has nothing to do.”
AP: “But also, what a contrast between the welcome you receive in the provinces or elsewhere, and the criticisms in the press!”
CDG: “The press is at the heels of the Americans. Most of our newspapers share the bias of the leaders of the Fourth Republic. To lower oneself, to efface oneself, to humiliate oneself, to bow one's head, that is the ideal. To abandon one's defense, to give away one's economy, to adopt the foreign policy of others, that is beautiful; that is irreproachable. Since France has been independent, the international press has been vomiting on us! But the peoples admire us!”
AP: “Especially the peoples of the Third World.”
CDG: “Especially them, of course, because they thirst for dignity more than others and because they would like to do as France has done: escape American hegemony as well as Russian hegemony. France, they dream of it. Other peoples as well.”
He has removed his glasses. He has his noble demeanor of the great hours:
“France is regaining its place in the world, the place it had in the best periods of its history. Little by little, the sympathy of the world is shifting towards it. Its recovery is long in coming? But its decline was much longer still!”
AP: “Aren't you afraid that we will be accused of nationalism?”
CDG: “Nationalists are those who use their nation to the detriment of others; nationals are those who serve their nation while respecting others. We are nationals. It is natural for peoples to be national! All peoples are! It is the mission of France to support the nationals of all countries! There is no balance, no justice in the world, if nations are not independent! There is no justice in the world without a strong French nation that is an encouragement for other nations!”
He continues: “It is by serving one's fatherland that one best serves the universe; the greatest figures of the universal Pantheon were first great figures of their country.”
On the essential, that is to say on France, de Gaulle never compromises. In secondary matters, he can be accommodating, even cunning. In great affairs, he prefers to give up, and even to collect provisional failures, rather than to deny himself. He quoted Pascal to me at Port-Royal: “Rather die than sign the formula.”
His strategy responds as infallibly to this intuition: the mission of France, which has always united him, as it has united those who followed him. It has allowed him to overcome its contradictions, as it has allowed the Gaullists to overcome their quarrels.
His mission seems to be to unite the past and the future. A man of the past, he embodies centuries of our history; he denies none of our diverse and even opposing traditions. A man of the future, he is so in the same momentum; to the point that I have never seen such attention to the future; nor, at the edge of extreme old age, such youthfulness in spirit.
It is undoubtedly there that he draws this permanent strength. Through a strange phenomenon of identification, he merges with France and with the murmur of the centuries. He does not content himself with speaking in the name of France. He is France itself. In the tangled skein of circumstances, in the conflicts of interests, in the games of chance, he guides himself by this single certainty.
He concludes:
“The French personality must be maintained at all costs, so that it may serve as an example to other nations and encourage them to assert themselves peacefully. This is our essential mission. A lamp is not made to remain hidden, but to bring light. That is the role of France. Provided it remains France and asserts itself as such. France does not merge with others.”
