French Forces

Le General - the early days ...

Unknown author (?Government of France).

Lt. General Charles de Gaulle, future President of France, reviews a party of Free French boy scouts in camp somewhere in Wales, September, 1940. While De Gaulle was to become the embodiment of French Resistance, welcomed rapturously back to France during the Liberation, his early days in exile in Britain were difficult, and not just because of his difficult, friend-shedding personality. He was as yet unknown back in France and, even in Britain, many French exiles were more than reluctant to accept him as leader of a liberation government-in-exile. Even among French troops evacuated at Dunkirk there was a strong party demanding repatriation to France where, presumably, they envisaged serving the "legitimate" (actually far from legitimate) emerging "État Francais" under Pétain. In these circumstances, I suppose that even inspecting Free French boy scouts (sons, presumably, of French parents in England who did reject the ÉF and Pétain) was a valuable photo opportunity. That, of course, would change ... Best regards, JR.