Jacques Foccart on May 1968 - Part I

From "Foccart Parle"

Jacques Foccart was formally known as an advisor to French presidents on African affairs. Unofficially, he was the #2 man in the De Gaulle regime. With Charles Pasqua, he founded the Service d’Action Civique (SAC) formally the militant group behind Gaullist politics, but unofficially a secret police operating on the mainland as well as conducting covert operations in Africa. Foccart was an incredible knowledgeable and practical man, whose insights and role were deeply valued by General de Gaulle. Foccart would retain his role throughout administrations until his ousting under Mitterand.

After that, he found himself in the opposition. Now more free to meet with all sorts of figures of the political sphere, and having long been curious about the founder of Jeune Afrique — weekly pan-African magazine, whose main line was critical of French policy in Africa — Béchir Ben Yahmed, he agreed to meet and have lunch. Finding the conversation pleasant, the pair agreed to continue seeing each other and so for the next eight years before Foccart agreed to give an account of his work under de Gaulle.

In this first part, I have translated an extract from interviews Jacques Foccard gave to the journalist Philippe Gaillard. He specialized in African matters after a stint as a foreign correspondent during the Algerian war. He was the press advisor to Senegalese President Senghor. He was also a former deputy director of Jeune Afrique.

In the second part, I will publish the exact transcript from the memos and audio recordings Foccart meticulously kept during his time at the Elysée, of his daily meetings with General de Gaulle, as well as his dealings with African leaders.

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Philippe Gaillard — Since he was elected by universal suffrage by the French people, does the President of the Republic not consider that the National Assembly no longer has much importance? That he is there to govern and the parliamentarians are there to debate?

Jacques Foccart — That would be a malicious caricature. The statue of General de Gaulle crushing democracy that some have wanted to sculpt is a fake. The General has a high regard for the presidential function. He is irritated by electoral pettiness and by what remains of parliamentary games, in which the Fourth Republic sank, in accordance with his prediction, that is also true. But you will find nothing anti-democratic either in the Bayeux speech or in the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. And General de Gaulle respects the Constitution, which is essentially his own.

It is true that he sometimes takes his own chisel to the statue I am talking about. I have already had the opportunity to warn you about this, but I return to it because it is important.

The General is a man who, in more or less private conversations, likes to exaggerate his statements and then leaves it to the exegetes to interpret his words. So, those who only listen to what they want to hear make a first-degree reading of what has been said to them.

If that had been my case, I would have been well placed to fuel a chronicle of anti-Gaullism! To return to the period we are discussing and the prospect of dissolving the Assembly, I will give you two examples.

“In any case,” the General explains to me as early as April 1967, “Parliament no longer exists; it has killed itself. It only interests those who make a profession of being interested in it.”

Six months later, I have a long conversation with him about political prospects. He intends, he tells me, to dissolve the Assembly and change the Prime Minister. I object that, if the current majority is precarious, it is still a majority, and that no majority can emerge from a consultation in the current circumstances. “Well, precisely,” he replies. “There will not be a majority on the other side either, because many will refuse to govern with the communists."

“So, I will govern without the Assembly. I will appoint a Prime Minister. He will be censured. I will reappoint him. I will use Article 16 and the provisions according to which the budget is automatically adopted if it is not voted on by December 31."

You would be easily followed if you explain that this dictatorial use of a democratic Constitution does not express the General's will. But did these words not betray a temptation?

Temptation? It was, as I told you, during one of those long, very relaxed conversations we sometimes had. He would then think aloud, let himself go, perhaps dream. But temptation is not a sin.

Let's leave the commentary. The project to dissolve the Assembly, is it real?

Certainly. But, personally, I maintain that if we hold elections, it is to win them. And if we dissolve now, we will lose.

Why?

Because a dissolution, and this is what I tell the General, will be poorly perceived by public opinion, which will see it as a challenge. The voters will interpret it as: “You did not want to give me a clear majority, so I summon you again and demand that you elect such a majority.” This is, in any case, the interpretation that the opposition will make, and the voters will rebel.

In one of his interviews with Michel Droit, de Gaulle had said that he would not serve his full term. This phrase had been cut. Does the question of succession not come to the fore anyway?

Not quite yet. What is certain is that the decline in Pompidou's standing with the General, as you mentioned earlier, is becoming more pronounced. During the same conversation in October 1967 — on October 13, to be precise — the General also told me: “In any case, Pompidou is finished. Instead of executing my policy, he compromises. He does not realize that he is opening the door to the assaults of demagoguery, from which he will not escape.”

The events of May and June 1968 will change all the parameters of the problem…

At least one person saw the troubles coming: Jacques Baumel, representative of the Hauts-de-Seine, where the University of Nanterre is located. In mid-January, he came to me with great insistence and said: “I warn you, we are going to have a big problem with the youth. And it will be very serious.” I have since mentioned this conversation to him. Curiously, he does not remember it, but I testify to it despite the fact that his positions in 1994 do not incline me to sing his praises. I noted the warning and reported it to the General and Georges Pompidou, but Baumel was very much alone in sensing this. Even Alain Peyrefitte, the Minister of National Education, had not perceived the evolution taking place in the universities. This is why, in reality, we were caught off guard.

Like the unions.

Like everyone, starting with the leader, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and his friends, who had no project whatsoever.

At the beginning of May, the first clashes between students and the police took place; there were hundreds of injured. In the night of May 10 to 11, it was the explosion. More than a thousand injured, including nearly four hundred hospitalized. What were the initial reactions at the Élysée?

At first, the General does not attach much importance to it. On May 10, he calmly receives President Eyadéma for lunch. In the evening, during my audience, he discusses minor issues. Nevertheless, addressing the subject, he tells me: “We have the means to deal with it. Therefore, we must restore order. We will then see to the root of the problem.”

But the riot is brewing. I go to see the people of the SAC on Rue de Solferino. Then I go to the Ministry of the Interior. Christian Fouchet seems a bit overwhelmed. We are joined by Michel Debré, then by Louis Joxe, who is acting as the interim head of government while he is on a trip to Iran and Afghanistan, and by the Secretary General of the Élysée, Bernard Tricot. I repeat what I had said in January 1960: “We must not let the day dawn on barricades!” Debré agrees. Fouchet finds it easy to say. Joxe listens without intervening much.

I have not been home for long when, around 5 A.M., Fouchet calls me: “Come immediately.” Joxe and Messmer are already at Place Beauvau when I arrive. Fouchet summarizes the situation: the police had said there were five or six barricades, the radio said fifty; it was the radio that was right. The intervention took place starting at 2 A.M. The affair was heated, but there were no deaths. We decide to go to the Élysée, where the General receives the ministers around 6 A.M.

During the day of Saturday, May 11, I see Fouchet, Debré, and many others. We note the good reactions of the Prefect of Police, Maurice Grimaud, who shows himself to be a man able to stand up to the demonstrators. A few of us take the initiative to create Committees for the Defense of the Republic, without knowing exactly what role they will be able to play, but to gather as many citizens as possible, Gaullists or not, who oppose disorder. Pierre Lefranc takes the lead and, in a few days, the CDRs become numerous and active groups.

That evening, for once, Africa is not the topic of my audience. The General finds that the action was well conducted, but that Fouchet should have launched the intervention earlier, “as soon as there was one stone on top of another.” He wonders if he should cancel his trip to Romania.

Pompidou returns to Paris and obtains the General's agreement to play the appeasement card. Not without difficulty: he had to tell him that he was ready to fully assume his responsibilities, but on this condition. At 11 P.M., he announces on television that the convicted students will be quickly brought before the court of appeal, thus suggesting that the sentences could be suspended! He calls for calm from the population.

Sunday is indeed calm. On Monday, several hundred thousand people march without incident; the unions seem to be taking over the movement. What do you do?

The same thing as the previous days: liaising with the ministers most directly concerned by the events. Every day, we have a meeting at Matignon. On Monday evening, the dinner planned long ago for the tenth anniversary of May 13 takes place at my home. Debré, Frey, Guichard, La Malène, Bonneval, Lefranc, and Ribière are present. No need to tell you that the current situation is discussed more than the events we are commemorating.

On the morning of Tuesday, May 14, de Gaulle leaves for Bucharest...

He hesitated until the last moment. At midnight, he received Pompidou, then Couve de Murville and Fouchet. Against the insistent advice, at least, of the Minister of the Interior, he made his decision.

During the crisis, Pompidou will face the situation and display his calm. Fouchet and many others will waver.

The following days?

I will not give you a detailed account of the events. I will only summarize my memories that can shed light on them.

So, in the following days, lively discussions take place about the advisability of the General's hasty return. As early as Wednesday, May 15, Fouchet, supported by Debré, insists that he be asked to return to Paris. I object that this will have the worst effect both nationally and internationally. Pompidou decides the next day: he will not make this appeal to the head of state.

The meetings are incessant, especially at Matignon. Pompidou's composure is remarkable. On the evening of the 16th, he decides to speak on television. Without isolating himself, he writes, amidst the bustle, the text of his address, which is excellent.

General de Gaulle returns on the evening of Saturday, May 18. In what frame of mind?

He chastises everyone. He confides to Pompidou his intention to organize, as early as June, a referendum on the participation of employees in the company.

This is what he will announce in his speech on the 24th, which will not go over well: a course in political philosophy in the midst of a general strike and the ongoing “chienlit”…

“I missed the mark,” he will acknowledge. He believed he could reverse the situation by announcing a grand design. But it was not the time. The delirious students, the workers camping in their factories, the frightened bourgeoisie, everyone was expecting something else. During the days when the General was preparing this address, I had repeatedly told him that it was crucial for him to put some feeling into it. But I sensed that I was exasperating him.

From this moment on, the General appears hesitant. The magic of his words has not worked. He perceives that the situation is unmanageable; he no longer sees a way out. Before the 24th, he was still talking about the future. “We will hold the referendum in June and elections in the fall,” he had told me. “Then, the reform of the University, the implementation of participation, the association of capital and labor. After that, I will leave.” Now, he no longer knows what to do. “I do not have the means to deal with the situation,” he tells me on the 26th.

On the evening of May 28, I have a distressing conversation with the General. I see him throwing in the towel: “Nothing obeys anymore. I have no government. I tell the ministers what they must do, and they do not do it. I tell the police prefect to retake the Odéon, and then I am told that it is not possible. What can I do?” There is a poignant silence, and then the General continues: “Foccart, I ask you, what can I do? Is there still something that can be done? I cannot hold up an entire people that is letting itself dissolve.” I try to comfort him. I tell him about the great demonstration we are organizing for the day after tomorrow, but he hardly listens.

“Good evening, Foccart,” he says to me as he takes his leave. And as I pass through the door: “Goodbye.”

After leaving the General's office, I go to see Mme de Gaulle, who had asked to speak with me and to whom I had a message of sympathy to convey, contained in a letter from a supporter. I do not find her in a state of mind that would allow her to boost her husband's morale.

She tells me that she was recognized in her car, at a red light, by the driver of a DS, who copiously insulted her, saying something like “We're going to get you the fuck out.” She is quite shaken by it. If it had been a student or a worker, but no: “Can you imagine,” she comments, “a man in a DS!” On a completely different level, she is scandalized by the remarks of the Archbishop of Paris, Mgr Marty, who has almost taken the side of the strikers.

The next day, May 29, is the longest day in the history of Gaullism. It could have been an incredible turning point in the history of France. How do you experience the hours of great suspense?

I had announced to my collaborators at the general secretariat that I would go to the Hôtel de Noirmoutier at the beginning of the morning, where I had not been for ten days. Before leaving my apartment, I call the chief of staff of Messmer, with whom I have an administrative matter to settle, who informs me of the postponement of the Council of Ministers to the next day. I call the aide-de-camp of the Élysée, then the chief of staff and the secretary general, La Chevalerie and Tricot.

They tell me that the General is going to rest in Colombey. They are anxious. I make a quick stop at Rue de Grenelle, trying to save appearances with my collaborators and, through them, with the Africans they meet or who call them. I arrive at the Élysée around 10:30 A.M., at the same time as Alain de Boissieu. His father-in-law had asked him to come see him and had warned him that he would keep him for lunch. I tell him that it must be something serious and I inform him of the obviously secret news of the imminent departure for Colombey. He is incredulous, but he promises to do everything to dissuade the General from maintaining this plan. We agree that I will wait for him in the Council room, away from prying eyes and ears, where he will come to update me. He stays in the General's office for a moment. Upon leaving, visibly shocked, he simply tells me: “I am not allowed to tell you anything. We are leaving for Colombey.”

Nothing more?

No. Boissieu will call me at the beginning of June to apologize. He had promised the General not to tell anyone. “Not even Foccart, who is waiting for me?” he had asked. The General had hesitated. “Not even Foccart.”

Some time later, he recounted the conversation in detail to me. I then noted down his account, which I have recently had the opportunity to revisit with him, and which I can therefore summarize accurately:

“The General had not slept for several days. I found him very preoccupied and determined to leave. Father,” I said to him, “you cannot distance yourself at the moment when events are becoming dramatic. You have the army with you. My men are ready.”

“Because it is you, because you are my son-in-law.”

“The others are also ready. You cannot give up like this. Moreover, I have a message to convey to you from my superiors, General Hublot, commander of the 1st Army Corps, and General Beauvallet, commander of the 6th Military Region. They have tasked me with telling you that the army is with you to defend the homeland and the Republic. The army is awaiting orders.”

“I can do nothing. No one obeys anymore, the ministers no longer command, everything is falling apart.”

“Not at all. I just saw Foccart; he is preparing a large demonstration for tomorrow.”

“I know, Foccart is doing everything he can, but there is no guarantee that this demonstration will be successful. People do not want to fight. I have nothing in my hands. So, I want to take a step back, create a shock. And also, I've had enough, enough!”

“I then stood up, stood at attention, and said: ‘It is no longer the son-in-law speaking to you, but the general commanding the 7th Division. My General, you do not have the right to do this.’ He stood up in turn, embraced me, and said: ‘Nevertheless, I want to do what I told you. I am going to see Massu. Then, I will speak to the country. On your side, you will go to Colombey, from where you will inform Massu.’”

“He handed me two letters in sealed envelopes. I was familiar with the first envelope, which contained his instructions in case of misfortune, and which he had already entrusted to me several times before trips abroad. The second was addressed to Georges Pompidou, but ‘to be given to him only if something happens to me or if I die.’ I returned the two letters to him the following weekend; he never told me what they contained.”

The General left. “Rome is no longer in Rome,” as Lacouture would write!…

The Élysée is paralyzed. Power is at the Hôtel Matignon, where I immediately go. I find the Prime Minister overwhelmed. He tells me about the conversation he had on the phone with the General, who announced his departure for Colombey in order to “take a step back,” and who hung up after uttering this historic phrase: “Good luck, Pompidou. I embrace you.”

Do you confirm the statements of Michel Jobert, then the Prime Minister's chief of staff, according to which Pompidou, after the departure of General de Gaulle, had considered leaving as well, and had taken measures accordingly?

I can tell you that this is completely inaccurate. Jobert must have misinterpreted a phrase from Pompidou or Juillet. From the moment the General left, I spend most of the day with Pompidou at Matignon. The Prime Minister is anxious, upset, like all of us. But he will never lose his composure, nor give the slightest impression that he might leave. The next day, he will talk about resignation, but it was not a consideration on May 29.

He leaves us for a moment to attend the engagement party of his son, Alain. I have lunch with Juillet, who is one of his closest collaborators, Lefranc, Rey, and Frey, in the on-call dining room. Lunch, that's a way of speaking: we are glued to the phone. Because the General has disappeared.

He should have landed in Colombey around 12:30 P.M., but there is no news of his helicopter. At 1:30 P.M., Xavier de La Chevalerie, the chief of staff, calls me. He wonders if he should trigger an alert. Recalling the General's secret instructions for organizing his potential departure from the Élysée at the time of the putsch, I take it upon myself to tell him not to do anything. I reassure him a little and reassure myself by reminding him that there are two accompanying helicopters — I am unaware that the aircraft occupied by Boissieu had veered off and that the other, the security one, had instructions to turn back to Saint-Dizier.

A little after 2 P.M., Alain de Boissieu calls me and says this: “Listen carefully, Jacques. I am in Colombey, but the General is not here. I am not authorized to tell you more, but, above all, do not worry, do not undertake any search. Tell Mr. Pompidou that it is up to him to play his role. Tell him that well, and that an emissary is coming to him with instructions.”

Who is this emissary?

There will be no emissary.

Immediately, I go to the large dining room, where I ask the maître d'hôtel to tell the Prime Minister that I wish to speak with him. I convey Boissieu's message to Pompidou. He does not hide his irritation. “Listen,” he says to me, more or less, “the General is incredible: he leaves without telling me anything and leaves me with everything on my shoulders!”

The afternoon is spent formulating hypotheses and suppositions, in the atmosphere you can imagine. Around 6 P.M., we learn that the General has arrived in Colombey, that he had come from Baden, and that he will be in Paris the next day for the Council of Ministers. But what a day!

In his Memoirs, Tricot writes that he left the Élysée to go to Matignon with you at 3 P.M…

Bernard Tricot must have been confused. Indeed, I am certain that I was at Matignon from the end of the morning, that I had lunch there, and that it was there — I can still see it — that I received the phone calls from La Chevalerie and Boissieu. This is also evident from my notes, which I dictated almost daily, and this is what Boissieu wrote concerning himself.

What determined General de Gaulle to leave? What happened at the headquarters of the French Forces in Germany?

Why did he leave? For all the reasons I have mentioned. He was very tired. He was demoralized by the nation that was letting itself go, by the state that was disintegrating. He did not see how he could take things back in hand. He needed, not so much to rest, as he said — that is not really what he did... — but to take a step back.

The family atmosphere certainly played a role, as we saw with Mme de Gaulle. Philippe de Gaulle exerted the same pressures on his father as his mother for him to retire.

“I have considered all eventualities, without exception,” the General said publicly the next day. So, the possibility of not returning. Therefore, what happened in Baden in less than an hour and a half, snack included? I do not know any more than you do. We have only one version of the dialogue between the General and the person to whom he had decided to confide, that of Massu, which is entirely to his credit, but which is surely not far from the truth. General de Gaulle certainly arrived in Baden tired and demoralized. He left reinvigorated and determined to resume the fight. Massu, caught off guard during his nap, since the postal strike prevented Boissieu from warning him¹. Consciously or not, it was this firm advice to remain in power, which he had already received from Alain de Boissieu, that the General had come to hear repeated by Massu. This does not diminish the merit of Jacques Massu, who gave a decisive nudge to destiny.

Had General de Gaulle considered relocating the government to Strasbourg or Metz, as General de Boissieu recently revealed he had confided in him?

General de Boissieu is not someone who fabricates stories. General de Gaulle, finding himself in a situation he could no longer analyze, considered all hypotheses; he made no secret of it. This exactly matches what he told me: that he had thought about “rebuilding Free France.”

In Baden-Baden?

Of course not; it was a manner of speaking. General de Boissieu confirmed and specified to me the three hypotheses that his father-in-law had formulated before him, and which he discussed in the television program you just mentioned. And firstly, that the General would not have gone to Germany if Boissieu had been able to reach Massu: the meeting would have taken place in Alsace. Here are the three hypotheses he was considering on the morning of May 29.

1. To remain in Colombey and inform the country that he would not return to Paris until the situation had returned to normal.

2. To relocate the government to Strasbourg or Metz, and govern with the help of the prefects, “who would become commissioners of the Republic,” and the generals commanding the military regions and the three armed forces, using the military's means of transmission and logistics.

3. After seeing Massu and creating a shock in public opinion with the suspense of this day, to return to Paris to deliver an energetic speech and “take the matter into his own hands.”

Alain de Boissieu believes that the emissary in question — whose dispatch he was unaware the General had abandoned — would have informed Pompidou of these three hypotheses, late enough that the Prime Minister could not oppose the General's plans. The expression “it is up to him to play his role” would then have implicitly meant: “based on the decision the General will have made.”

“Free France” is an exaggerated expression, since there was no question of leaving the national territory, but the second hypothesis does not fit within the constitutional framework.

It remained a hypothesis. And Boissieu adds that the draft or outline of the speech of May 30 was on the General's desk on the morning of the 29th, which seems to prove that the third hypothesis was already the most substantial.

Unless it was a draft of a message to be broadcast from Colombey in the first hypothesis, from Strasbourg or Metz in the second…

In any case, the text was certainly revised, as always.

Until the end of the afternoon of May 29, you were still unaware of what had become of General de Gaulle between his departure from Paris and his arrival in Colombey?

Pompidou was also unaware, and he took it very badly. Especially since the General had secretly informed the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maurice Couve de Murville, upon his arrival in Baden, of his presence on foreign soil, and the Minister of the Armed Forces, Pierre Messmer, had been informed by the military who had provided the helicopter. I was informed of the details of the trip on May 30 around 10 A.M. by General Lalande, the director of the military cabinet, who had also gone to Baden with Philippe de Gaulle to ensure the safety of his wife and children. A little later, I went to Matignon and reported Lalande's account to Pompidou.

The Prime Minister then shared with me his temptation to resign. “Understand me,” he said, “I cannot continue to govern under such conditions.” I replied that I understood him well, but that he could not leave at that moment.

As soon as the General arrived at the Élysée, around 12:30 P.M., I literally forced my way into his office. My voice was choked with a mix of emotion, anger, and determination to tell him what I truly thought, namely that the country was waiting for nothing more than the return to order and the restoration of authority, that he must intervene publicly in this sense, speak loudly and firmly, and without losing a moment. I found the General of the great days. He listened to me and, as a response, read me passages from the speech he was almost done writing. I drew his attention to the importance of broadcasting this message before the demonstration whose organization we were finishing, which was to begin in the middle of the afternoon, and thus without waiting until the evening, as he had planned. He agreed and decided to record it immediately after the Council of Ministers, only on the radio, as I told you. It was then that he confided in me that, considering it was no longer possible to act in Paris, he had considered “rebuilding Free France.”

The speech had therefore been written in very little time. It was recorded around 4 P.M. by a sound engineer accompanied by André Astoux, the deputy director general of the ORTF, and, at the General's invitation, which I felt as a particular attention, in my presence. This is the only time the General recorded a message in his office because there was no camera. The broadcast took place half an hour later. The climate began to change.

According to Thierry Desjardins, in his biography of Charles Pasqua, “it was Pasqua who, fearing a ‘flop’ [for the demonstration], begged Foccart to return to the Élysée and obtain from the General that he advance his address by two hours!”…

Charles Pasqua did not have to beg me for anything. I had a single meeting with the General before the recording, immediately after his return, and it was then that the time was set. At the time of the broadcast, tens of thousands of Parisians and residents of the entire Île-de-France were already on the march; they listened to the address on transistor radios. Others, who heard the General at home, rushed to join them.

In any case, the reversal of the situation was confirmed by the hundreds of thousands of Parisians who marched up the Champs-Élysées to show their support for the head of state...

It was fantastic! The General knew he had won. The time of uncertainties had come to an end.

The tempo of the dramatic sequence — the disappearance and reappearance of the General, the speech, and the demonstration — was extraordinary.

And it made us look like great strategists. The reality is that we obviously could not have foreseen the impromptu event in Baden and its consequences. We were served by luck. I had organized the demonstration at the General's request, as I told you, and it was to take place on May 31. Then, I learned that the deputies of Paris, at the initiative of one of them, Pierre Krieg, were preparing something for the 30th. We should not disperse our efforts. So, we immediately agreed to have a single demonstration, and on the 30th.

How was it organized?

The Committees for the Defense of the Republic, which I had helped to organize and whose leadership had been entrusted to Lefranc, had quickly gathered many people. They were full of enthusiasm. It was they, along with the SAC and the National Association for the Support of General de Gaulle's Action, who did almost everything. There was still a lot of improvisation. We were looking for slogans. Now, a few days before the demonstration, I had lunch with Jean-Pierre Guerlain, the perfumer, who is a friend. I enlisted his help, and we scribbled together. So it happened that some of the slogans that had the most impact were authored by this industrialist who was not very interested in politics…

The support did not come only from the Gaullists. You you had rallied what can be called “the party of order.” Did that not bother you?

It was not the time to discourage those who wanted to join us. I even received a delegation of former OAS members who came to offer their services. Thébault, that officer I had met during the putsch, before he practically went into dissidence, contacted me.

The Grenelle agreements on May 27 also contributed to ending the general strike, even if the effect was not immediate, but they would weigh heavily on the budget and the economy. Were you involved in the negotiations?

No, that was not within my responsibilities. Debré had been excluded and he was furious; he wanted to resign.

That is understandable: it was a bit much to exclude the Minister of Finance!

That's what I had said to Pompidou. He replied that it was unfair but necessary: that at some point, Debré would bang his fist on the table and risk causing the breakdown of negotiations with the unions. It's true that he would have been the red flag. The success of the Grenelle negotiations owes a lot to a young Secretary of State named Jacques Chirac, who was in charge of Employment under Jean-Marcel Jeanneney, the Minister of Social Affairs, and who was the man of contacts with the CGT. Pompidou had great confidence in Chirac, whom he called “the bulldozer.” He had brought him into the government at the age of thirty-four. Before promoting him to this position, the Prime Minister had recommended that I address the one who was then a mission officer in his cabinet to resolve issues that required intervention at Matignon. I followed this advice and found it to be good.

In his message, General de Gaulle announced the dissolution of the National Assembly…

This was not included in the draft he had shown me. He added the dissolution at the last moment, at Pompidou's insistence. It was now or never, but the General was reluctant.

He also announced a new government, and he wants to form it immediately. The matter is handled swiftly, on May 31. This time, the President of the Republic, who had previously yielded to his Prime Minister's reasons to remove Vallon from the list, imposes René Capitant, the other champion of participation, whose Gaullism was nothing less than unconditional.

As planned for several days, Pompidou invites me to lunch. He is still looking for someone for Equipment and Housing. I suggest the name of Robert Galley, who has shown courage and character in recent weeks: while so many politicians were keeping a low profile, he had put himself at the disposal of the SAC.

Pompidou calls Tricot to submit this choice to the General, who accepts, and who will appreciate this new member of the government so much that a month later he will consider making him Prime Minister. Things are moving so fast that Pompidou, leaving to present the list to the General, has not had time to inform not only Galley but also other new ministers, such as Joël Le Theule and Yvon Morandat.

He leaves me in his office with the task of announcing their appointments to them. The most surprised is Galley.

Now, the elections must be prepared. Who is in charge of that?

As usual, our small team meets at Matignon under Pompidou's presidency: Chaban, Debré, Frey, Guichard, Lefranc, representing the Committees for the Defense of the Republic (CDR), and myself, as well as the new Minister of the Interior, Raymond Marcellin. Naturally, given his six years of experience as head of the Ministry of the Interior and as Minister of State in charge of Relations with Parliament in the outgoing government, Roger Frey is entrusted with the responsibility of directing the campaign. Additionally, the CDR, born out of the events and which have played their role as a unifier beyond political affiliations, are maintained. At my proposal and with the General's agreement, Pierre Lefranc officially becomes the General Delegate.

You have little time for the nominations...

Very little. The week from June 3 — and it's Pentecost Monday — to June 9, the deadline for submitting candidacies, is devoted to it day and night. As in the previous year, but at an accelerated pace, I shuttle between the Élysée and Matignon. I see the General and Pompidou twice a day. In between, I call various people to help resolve constituency problems, and there are plenty of those!

The General scrutinizes the lists, gets annoyed, repeats that it is out of the question to be absent from a single constituency—he will eventually concede, albeit very reluctantly, that there should be no UDR [Union for the Defense of the Republic, which succeeds the UNR] candidate opposing Giscard d'Estaing or Pleven. He gets angry when he sees the name of someone who seems to have been introduced through cronyism, such as Léon Delbecque, supported by Chaban.

He harbors resentment towards Pompidou, as he is convinced that the Prime Minister wanted him to leave. This is false, but I cannot completely convince him otherwise.

“In any case,” he adds, “there are people around him who wanted me to leave.” That is quite possible.

After seeing the Prime Minister's speech on television, the General exploded: “He didn't even mention my name! He didn't clearly say that there would be candidates everywhere invested by the UDR.”

This second point would be recalled in a press release issued on the General's instructions. Still in the same week, regarding a leak that took place on the pardon of Salan and the other OAS convicts², he again incriminates Pompidou and his entourage. In reality, it is René Capitant, the new Minister of Justice, who is at the origin of the leak.

The recovery of the situation is far from perfect at the beginning of June. There are still strikes, demonstrations that are harshly repressed. The Sorbonne and the Odéon remain occupied. Isn't the government worried about this?

As soon as we had settled the investitures, we drew the General's attention to the concern that was returning, to the criticism of the government's inaction, to the need to put an end to the agitation before the elections, under penalty of incurring a harsh sanction at the ballot box. I reported this during my audience on June 11. The General replied that things were moving in the right direction, that we should not dramatize or provoke. Two hours later, the Latin Quarter was ablaze again. On the 12th, the revolutionary parties were dissolved and demonstrations banned.

On the 16th, the Sorbonne was evacuated…

Against Pompidou's advice. It was the General who gave the order.

We can adopt other benchmarks, but the end of this occupation which lasted more than a month and which made the Sorbonne the high place of the “revolution” or of the “chaos”, depending on the point of view, marks the return of order…

And this is the moment chosen by the General, who was not lavish with expressions of his gratitude, to express to me without words, with all the delicacy of which he is capable, his gratitude for the help I gave him during this terrible month. On June 18, breaking protocol and without giving an explanation to anyone, he decided that I would accompany him to Mont Valérien in his car. As I thanked him for it, at the beginning of the journey, he simply said to me: “It was quite natural.”

I digress, because this reminds me of another feature of the General's delicacy. At the end of the meeting during which it had been decided to build a new airport at Roissy, when taking leave of Paul Delouvrier, delegate for regional planning, he said to him: “On your way out, go and see Foccart, who has his residence in Luzarches, in this region. He must be warned.”

As luck would have it, Luzarches is not in line with a runway.

To return to May and June 1968, I was also moved by a more political trait of the General, which was evident throughout this period. It is extraordinary, when you think back: he remained constantly and carefully attentive to Africa. I will not tell you that African affairs occupied the bulk of my audiences at that time as usual, but the General was concerned about the repercussions that the events from France would have on Africa, in Senegal in particular, I told you about it. And I was struck, on certain days of great tension, by the way he listened to the news, even minor ones, which I reported to him, and which he reacted to: with the same curiosity, the same availability and the same capacity of analysis, as if nothing had happened.

Perhaps it distracted him. One of those days, commenting on some event or other, He almost gave me a lecture on the history of Dahomey.

From your story we can gather the impression that you have perceived May 1968 as a serious disorder and as, for the government, essentially a problem of re-establishing order. Was there not, behind the events, a real social crisis?

Such disorder could not have occurred solely as a result of the action of a few agitators. But before the thunderclap, the atmosphere did not seem charged to me; afterwards, in the heat of the action or reaction, we were incapable of analyzing the deep causes. I must say that, subsequently, we never really determined them. In the time of the OAS, everything was much clearer. May 68 was the result of multiple disparate and even antagonistic factors. It was not really a revolution, but this vast anarchic movement resembled a revolution in the sense that it released all the frustrations and all the discontents.

Although he closely followed and even directed the preparations for the elections, General de Gaulle intervened very little in public…

But with force. During the week of the investitures, he spoke with Michel Droit in front of the television cameras. Then, a speech was planned the day before the first round. In the car that took us to Mont Valérien on June 18, I told him that this intervention would be more decisive on the eve of the second round.

“You are right,” he replied. “I will therefore make two speeches.”

I replied that this did not seem desirable to me. This double intervention by the head of state in the election campaign would make the opposition howl. Besides, a single speech would have more impact. He did not conclude immediately, but the next day he rallied to my proposal. The impact was what I expected.

And the result, on June 30, was a phenomenal majority of 358 seats out of 485...

Phenomenal, but ambiguous. This majority is that of the “party of order”, as you said, which the General knows well that it will not support him in the realization of his economic and social plan. As early as July 2, he told me: “The matter that we must succeed in now is participation. It will be the last great service that I will render to the country.”

And he wants to move quickly: “I will do it by referendum in October,” he adds.

It is also the touchstone of his disagreement with Pompidou, which will become more bitter. What do you perceive of this?

I have a front-row seat to see how the relationship between the two men is developing. I will do everything I can to try to heal the wounds that General de Gaulle, for whom you know my feelings, and Georges Pompidou, for whom I have great esteem and a great deal of friendship, I could say affection, have caused each other. Between the two rounds of the elections, I have a long conversation with Pompidou. He does not hide his ambition from me, which I consider legitimate, to succeed the General. He tells me that he does not want to form the government.

“The General wants participation, he explains to me in substance. The Capitant project is stupid. It will not succeed, but I do not want to pretend to approve of it. That is not the most important thing. If the General intends to ask me one day to run for President of the Republic, let me say it bluntly: I cannot assume the unpopularity that the head of government will receive in the coming months. I must take some space, so that I can appear, when the time comes, as a kind of recourse, so that people can say to themselves: ‘There is Pompidou.’”

“I therefore hope that the General will appoint a new Prime Minister. He would still have to make it clear that this is not a disgrace, quite the contrary. On the other hand, when the General leaves, public opinion will want the succession to reflect a rejuvenation. In 1970, I will be in my sixties, while Giscard will still be forty. That will weigh heavily. So the deadline should come before then.”

As soon as July 3rd, the General broached the subject with me. He had seen Pompidou, who had asked him not to appoint him.

“Pompidou is right,” he told me. “He has acquired a stature that is clearly manifest and deserves popularity. If there were an election now, he would undoubtedly be elected. When the day comes, he will have to run, and he must be reserved for that. He must be spared the bad blows that await the next head of government.”

I then suggest that, to preserve Pompidou's chances, the delay should not be too long. The General reacts: “You are probably right, but I cannot leave when the country has just shown massive confidence in me; no one would understand if I left. Besides, I feel very good. And then, if I had to leave, say before the end of the year, it would be ridiculous for Pompidou to leave Matignon and stay away from business for a few months.”

I insist, with a boldness that I measure better today, because finally I must give the General the impression that I am pushing him out:

“General, we must not let the passing of time make us forget Pompidou.”

“Rest assured: he will intervene, he will travel, he will make people talk about him.”

“Certainly, but you too will have to talk about him from time to time, to entertain the idea that he will be your successor.”

“Of course, I will do all of this.”

On that note, I go to see Pompidou and report this conversation to him. I thought I would please him, but it seems only half true to me. He is clearly perplexed. He has the impression that the General will not let him leave willingly. He thinks that Couve de Murville will quickly be overwhelmed, that a crisis will ensue which could lead the General to retire in conditions which will not be commensurate with his historical character. And that he, Pompidou, will be responsible for it, because it would not have happened if he had stayed.

Will the hesitation waltz continue?

I don't like the word, because it's rather dramatic.

The next day, Thursday, July 4th, I saw Pompidou again. He seemed convinced to me that the decision had been made, that Couve de Murville would be Prime Minister. I found him relieved. On Friday, the General was still hesitating over the choice of a successor. He did not hide from me how much he regretted having to do without Pompidou.

“But anyway, he is leaving,” he added. “What can I do, I can't do anything about it.”

I went immediately afterwards to Matignon. I found Pompidou prey to final hesitations. I informed him of the state of mind of the General, who, clearly, found himself in difficulty having to form a government without him. He told me that, if the General asked him, he would be unable to refuse to stay at Matignon, but that it would be madness on his part, that he was too tired, that he should form the government straight away, whereas he was always very tried when he had to announce to a minister that he would not be in the new government; that then there would be budgetary arbitrations, then the preparation of reforms, without being able to breathe; that, in these conditions, at one time or another, he would do something stupid.

I left him with the impression that the prospect of remaining head of government frightened him, but that he considered that it would be his duty to accept. On Saturday, late in the morning, he told Tricot that he had thought about it, that he could not, in conscience, back out, and that he was ready to form the government. Tricot reported this to the General, who replied irritably:

“I regret it very much, but I asked Couve last night to do it, and he agreed. Let Pompidou know that it is now too late.”

I only learned this on Monday morning. It was going to be a terrible day for me. At the end of the morning, I see Pompidou, beside himself.

“The General made fun of me,” he told me, “he tricked me. The truth is that he never wanted me to stay at Matignon.”

He explains to me that on Friday evening, when I arrived, it was still firm on his decision to leave, but what I told him about the trouble in which the General found himself in shook him, and that then, during a family dinner, his wife and sister-in-law, usually inclined to push him to drop out, told him that he did not have the right to give up, that it would be a betrayal.

“For the first time in my life,” he continued, “I hadn’t slept at night. I thought a lot. I made my decision in the morning. I informed Tricot. He called me back to tell me that it was too late.”

All weekend long, he had replayed the events in his mind. He had noticed that the General had never insisted for him to stay, simply telling him over and over again that he regretted his decision to leave, but that he respected it. He had concluded that the General had wanted to change Prime Ministers from the beginning, but that he was the one who resigned, and that he had only played out a scenario written by the General. As a result, he refused to write a letter of resignation, because he did not consider himself to have resigned.

In the evening, I saw the General, who gave an absolutely opposite reading of the rest of his discussions with Pompidou: “I don't understand. For ten days, he repeated to me and had you and Tricot repeat that he did not want to continue, he explained his reasons to me, which were good, and which you also developed in front of me. So I ended up making arrangements for someone else to form the government. At that point, he came to tell me that he wanted to stay...”

The General asked me to insist with Pompidou that he send a letter explaining that after six years he needed to rest and take some time out, to which he would respond by paying tribute to the Prime Minister's actions and approving of him taking a step back so that he could then devote himself to very important tasks.

“Besides,” he adds, “if he does not want to confirm his resignation — for which, once again, I can understand the reasons, it is because he has something else in mind, I do not know what tactic. Now, if there is certainly a tactic to be carried out with a view to my succession, it is my business, not his, and I would not forgive him for that.”

With each of the two men, I obviously developed my arguments to demonstrate to them that their reasoning was excessive and unjust, but I left them each convinced that the other had plotted maneuvers against him. As I leave the General's office, I go to see Tricot, who comments: “It's Marivaux, amorous spite.” I then returned to the Hôtel Matignon. I recounted, in a toned-down manner, what the General had told me, and I insisted all the more on the need for the exchange of letters that Pompidou must be received the next day by the General, and that they really must agree on this. But Pompidou is intractable. He does not want to write. He wants even less for the General to write to him mentioning the high functions to which he will be called, because Debré received a letter in the same terms in 1962.

How does the Pompidou audience go?

I wait for him with Tricot outside the General's office. “The General was very tactful,” he tells us. “We explained frankly how things happened. We agreed on the terms of the exchange of letters. I am reassured.”

At the end of the day, I go to Matignon.

“You were for six years,” Pompidou tells me, “the best of my friends.” And he kisses me. Which was not his style. It was, moreover, the only time.

I believe that we should quote the end of the letter that the General wrote: “Wherever you are going to find yourself, know, my dear Friend, that I wish to maintain particularly close relations with you. Finally, I hope that you will be ready to accomplish any mission and assume any mandate that could one day be entrusted to you by the nation.”

1. General de Gaulle had forbidden Alain de Boissieu from informing anyone, including Massu, before leaving Paris. He had instructed him to call the headquarters in Baden upon arriving at Colombey. However, La Boisserie had no other telephone installation besides the public line. Boissieu's efforts to obtain the connection were in vain.

2. On June 7, 1968, General de Gaulle pardoned the last OAS convicts who were still detained (Raoul Salan and Antoine Argoud) or in exile, such as Georges Bidault, Salan's successor at the head of the clandestine organization.