It is one of the best kept secrets in the history of Gaullism.
At the dawn of his legend, De Gaulle based his fragile legitimacy on a secret alliance which proved to be decisive for him, but did not come without heavy counterparts: with Joseph Stalin.
It led him to torpedo, in 1944, the exploitation of the victory of the French army in Italy and the British project of a breakthrough by the Balkans which would have made it possible to avoid the return of war on French soil and would have prevented the USSR from asserting itself in
Eastern Europe.
It also resulted in the installation of the Communist Party, discredited by its conduct during the strange war and its twenty-two-month collaboration with Nazi Germany, at the heart of the political game and the state apparatus.
Former Managing Editor of
Figaro Magazine,
Henri-Christian Giraud is also a specialist in contemporary history.
Nourished by the best diplomatic sources and published for the first time in 1988, his
De Gaulle and
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