De Gaulle Leaves After Big Vote Against Him

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31974, 29 April 1969, Page 15

De Gaulle Leaves After Big Vote Against Him

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, April 28. Calmly, but in an atmosphere of political uncertainty, France turns today to a future without General Charles de Gaulle. At noon he formally ceased to be President of France, ending the 11 years of his intensely personal rule in France and his towering, often controversial, always individualistic role in world politics.

The General announced his resignation in a terse communique at 11 minutes past midnight local time: “I am ceasing to exercise my functions as President of the Republic. This decision takes effect from midday today.

He thus carried out his vow to leave if the majority of France’s 29,000.000 . electorate voted “no” in the referendum on Senate and regional reforms.

The majority of “Noes" was in fact somewhat bigger than anybody expected—s2.B7 per cent of voters were against and 47.13 for. After de Gaulle, who? That was the big question Frenchmen were asking today The two principal figures at the front of the political stage now are the former Prime Minister. Mr Georges Pompidou, and the president of the Senate. Mr Alain Poher, who becomes interim Head of State.

Mr Poher. a Centrist, may go to see the General at his country home of Colombey-les-deux-Eglises, in east France, today. The General remained at his large, austere country home at Colombey throughout the week-end, watching the referendum results turn steadily against him yesterday. Informed sources said he would stay at Colombey rather than return to Paris, where his defeat was celebrated by crowds in the streets chanting “Goodbye, Charles."

During the night there were some clashes in the Latin quarter between students and police, but in general France received the President's passing from power with a calm which the nation obviously prizes greatly a year after the riots of last May and June Having achieved what the rioters failed to bring about, the voters now have their eyes turned firmly to the future—and particularly the period of between 20 and 35 days before Presidential elections are held. Opposition politicians were today beginning a series of meetings to decide on new policy. Whoever the new master at the Elysee Presidential palace is. a new page will, as the Prime Minister (Mr Couve de Murville) put it yesterday. be turned in French history. General de Gaulle, who led the Free French in World War II and then returned to power at the height of a political crisis in 1958, ruled as an individual. He was often compared to a king and his 11 years in power were a period of intensely personal power.

Many observers feel that it was this personal element which led to his fatal linking of his political future with the result of the referendum.

Seeking a confirmation from the French people of his presidency. General de Gaulle finally found that he was out of step with a nation unwilling to fall under his dramatic spell again and wanted a change. Early speculation has made the genial, bushy-eyebrowed Mr Pompidou a probable favourite in the forthcoming election. But Mr Poher, who has not yet announced whether he will be a Presidential candidate, has already gained the support of the Socialist Party leader, Mr Guy Mollet. Ever since the possibility of a Gaullist defeat emerged in the referendum campaign, politicians have been talking about the possible emergence of a “third force" opposing both the Gaullists and the Communists.

This third force, grouping the Centre, some Socialists and lapsed Gaullists like the former Finance Minister, Mr Valery Giscard d’Estaing, might gain a majority in the country. But it is doubtful whether, in the face of opposition from Gaullists and Communists, it would be able to govern the country as firmly as General! de Gaulle did. United Press International, said the last man to rule’ France longer was the Emperor Napoleon HI. who reigned over the Second Empire from 1852 until he was deposed in 1870. Generar de Gaulle resigned today as president of the Fifth Republic which he founded on December 21, 1958. Technically, the issue that ended General de Gaulle was a “yes” or “no” vote on a Gaullist reform bill. Broadly, it would have stripped the Senate of political power. decentralised France into 21 regions and revised nearly one-third of the Constitution's lesser provi-i sions. But polls and interviews!

indicated that few Frenchmen understood all the technicalities of this bill and that they viewed this simply as a vote for or against the General. United Press International said the men who emerged as contenders for occupancy of the Elysee Presidential Palace were Mr Couve de Murville, the General’s personal choice; the Foreign Minister. Mr Michel Debre, the pro-Gaullist Education Minister: Mr Edgar Faure, the Senate President, Mr Poher. a middie-road moderate: and several Leftists, including Mr Francois Mitterand and Mr Guy Mollet, Riot police were deployed throughout Paris and concentrated heavily in the antiGaullist suburbs, but the only immediate violence was a brief clash between about 300 students on the Left Bank and riot police charged into the group as it attempted to march down the Boulevard St Michel in the heart of the Latin Quarter, firing tear-gas and dispersing them. Bystanders jeered the police as they pursued the students down side streets that had been the battlefield of last spring's studentworker rebellion. But calm quickly returned.