II.

Leader of the Free French Forces

The forces under de Gaulle's command, including French colonials and a considerable part of the French fleet, made an unsuccessful attack on Dakar (now in Senegal) in September 1940, joined the British forces in the conquest of Syria in 1941, and took control of Madagascar in 1942. In June 1943 de Gaulle joined the French Committee of National Liberation in Algiers, capital of the French colony of Algeria, as copresident with General Henri Giraud. After maneuvering Giraud out, in 1943, de Gaulle became sole president of the committee, which moved its headquarters from Algiers to London in May 1944 and to Paris in August 1944, after the Allies liberated France. The following month the committee was recognized by the United States government as the de facto government of France. De Gaulle became provisional premier-president in November 1945. Two months later he resigned because his proposals for increasing the powers of the president met with hostility from the people and the legislature of France. In 1947 he organized a new political movement, the Rassemblement du Peuple Français (Rally of the People of France), or RPF. In the 1951 elections, the RPF won the largest number of seats in the French Assembly. The RPF worked to strengthen the central government, balance the budget, promote private enterprise, and remove state controls on the economic life of France. By 1953, however, the strength of the movement had so declined that de Gaulle disavowed it and went into retirement.