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70th Anniversary of De Gaulle's First BBC Speech

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  • 22-06-2010 3:06pm
    #1
    donaghs
    Registered Users Posts: 2,737 ✭✭✭


    This week was the anniversary of De Gaulle's BBC Speech on the 18th June 1940, in which he said "Whatever happens, the flame of the French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished".

    Lots of fanfare about it, Sarkozy and Cameron making speeches etc.

    What are people's thoughts on the event? De Gaulle did salvage some dignity for France, but that involved some collective amnesia about the defeat and collaboration. Was he the right man to lead a liberated France? Was his a good legacy?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8747121.stm


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    #2
    Morlar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    donaghs wrote: »
    ... salvage some dignity for France, but that involved some collective amnesia about the defeat and collaboration.

    Not to be pedantic but I'd say there is a degree of collective amnesia about the resistance too. The rival resistance groups, what actually motivated them and how they behaved both to the Germans and also to the other resistance groups and to the allies who had to deal with them.

    The timing of when they appeared, what they were trying to do & what they said they did vs what they actually achieved, the settling of scores in the aftermath and so on.

    I was reading a book the other day which covered the myths and realities of the SS Das Reich advance to normandy in the days following D-Day (including Tulle and Oradour etc) the book also covered Irishmen in the SAS parachuted in who had to deal with the resistance - in one case allies dropped in were not informed that their comrades had landed several miles away as they were in the company of rival resistance groups who wanted to simply keep them for themselves as a weapons training asset regardless of the overall mission - ( bear in mind this is immediately pre-D-Day 1944). Also many were not interested in French nationalism but in seizing communist power in a weakened France post war.


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    #3
    MarchDub
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    Morlar wrote: »
    Not to be pedantic but I'd say there is a degree of collective amnesia about the resistance too. The rival resistance groups, what actually motivated them and how they behaved both to the Germans and also to the other resistance groups and to the allies who had to deal with them.

    The timing of when they appeared, what they were trying to do & what they said they did vs what they actually achieved, the settling of scores in the aftermath and so on.

    I was reading a book the other day which covered the myths and realities of the SS Das Reich advance to normandy in the days following D-Day (including Tulle and Oradour etc) the book also covered Irishmen in the SAS parachuted in who had to deal with the resistance - in one case allies dropped in were not informed that their comrades had landed several miles away as they were in the company of rival resistance groups who wanted to simply keep them for themselves as a weapons training asset regardless of the overall mission - ( bear in mind this is immediately pre-D-Day 1944). Also many were not interested in French nationalism but in seizing communist power in a weakened France post war.

    Very interesting insight into the French character - talk about a Me Fein culture! Not to be trite but reminds me of what is going on in the World Cup.


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