October 4, 1958: France Establishes Its Fifth Republic

October 4, 1958: France adopts a new Constitution, beginning its Fifth Republic. Charles de Gaulle demanded it, and Michel Debré did most of the writing. In the new government established in the new Republic, de Gaulle served as President, head of state; and Debré as Prime Minister, head of the government.

The First Republic was founded on September 21, 1792, when the French Revolution overthrew the monarchy of King Louis XVI. Napoleon Bonaparte brought it to an end when he declared the First Empire on May 18, 1804. That Empire lasted until April 11, 1814, and was restored briefly from March 20 to July 7, 1815.

The Bourbon Restoration lasted until February 23, 1848, when France's branch of the European Revolutions of 1848 established the Second Republic. That ended on December 2, 1852, when Napoleon's grandnephew, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, proclaimed the Second Empire, and himself as Emperor Napoleon III. (He considered Napoleon's son, who never actually reigned, to be Napoleon II.)

The Second Empire fell on September 4, 1870, after Napoleon III was captured in the Battle of Sedan 2 days earlier, costing France the Franco-Prussian War. The Third Republic lasted through the Dreyfus Affair, World War I and the Great Depression, until falling to the Nazis on July 10, 1940.

After de Gaulle's provisional government following the Liberation of Paris on August 25, 1944, the Fourth Republic began with the adoption of its Constitution on October 13, 1946. It was basically a resumption of the Third Republic. But it suffered from a lack of political consensus, a weak executive, and governments forming and falling in quick succession.

Finally, the Algieria Crisis of 1958 forced the government's hand. On June 1, it voted to return de Gaulle to power. He had offered himself as the savior of the nation. It was not the first time, and it would not be the last.

Many opposed him. Writer-philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, publicly known to be a militant atheist in the mold of a new Voltaire, said, "I would rather vote for God." de Gaulle himself said, "Who honestly believes that, at age 67, I would start a career as a dictator?" Many did. But, as has so often been the case, a people's desire for stability topped all other concerns. de Gaulle once again turned out to be the right man for the job... for the moment.

On June 3, de Gaulle called for a new constitution. On September 28, the nation's voters approved it. It took effect on October 4, and de Gaulle was elected President on December 21, taking office on January 9, 1959. On its issue dated 5 days earlier, January 5, Time magazine named de Gaulle its Man of the Year for 1958.

The 1958 constitution also replaced the French Union with the French Community, similar to the British Empire transitioning to the British Commonwealth. Over the course of calendar year 1960, 14 French colonies in Africa declared their independence. Finally, Algeria was allowed to become independent on July 5, 1962. This kept France stable until the "May Days" of 1968, when de Gaulle sent troops in to settle things. France has not even approached the need for a Sixth Republic since then.

The Constitution of the Fifth Republic has been amended 24 times, most recently in 2008.

So, to recap. Chronologically:

1792-1804: First Republic

1804-1815: First Empire

1815-1848: Bourbon Restoration

1848-1852: Second Republic

1852-1870: Second Empire

1870-1940: Third Republic

1940-1944: Third Reich

1944-1946: Provisional Government

1946-1958: Fourth Republic

1958-present: Fifth Republic

By time: Third Republic, 70 years; Fifth Republic, 64 years and counting as of October 4, 2022; Bourbon Restoration, 33 years; Second Empire, 18 years; Fourth Republic, 12 years; First Republic, 11 years; First Empire, 11 years; Second Republic, 4 years; Third Reich, 4 years; post-WWII provisional government, 2 years.

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October 4, 1958 was a Saturday. Game 3 of the World Series was played at Yankee Stadium, and the New York Yankees beat the Milwaukee Braves, 4-0. Don Larsen was not perfect, as he was 2 years earlier, but effective enough to combine with reliever Ryne Duren for a 6-hit shutout. Hank Bauer hit a home run. Mickey Mantle went 0-for-2 with 2 walks. Hank Aaron went 0-for-3 with a walk. The Yankees went on to win the Series in 7 games.

There was college football played that day, including the following games:

* Number 1 Oklahoma beat Oregon, 6-0 at Owen Field in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma went on to win the Big Seven Conference (it became the Big Eight when Oklahoma State joined in 1960). The next week, they lost to Texas in the Cotton Bowl, which would be their only loss of the season.

* Number 2 Auburn beat Chattanooga, 30-8 at Cliff Hare Stadium (now Jordan-Hare Stadium) in Auburn, Alabama.

* Number 3 Ohio State beat the University of Washington, 12-7 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Number 4 Michigan State and Number 16 Michigan played to a 12-12 tie at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan.

* Number 5 Army beat Penn State, 26-0 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York. Army had the season's Heisman Trophy winner, running back Pete Dawkins.

* Number 6 Mississippi beat Trinity College, 21-0 at Alamo Stadium in San Antonio. Trinity now play in NCAA Division III.

* Number 7 Notre Dame beat Number 17 Southern Methodist (SMU), 14-6 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. In those days, Notre Dame didn't accept invitations to bowl games, so they did not go on to play in the Cotton Bowl game, or any other.

* Number 8 Iowa were held to a 13-13 tie by the Air Force Academy, at Iowa Stadium (now Kinnick Stadium) in Iowa City. Iowa still won the Big 10 Conference title.

* Number 9 Wisconsin beat cross-State Marquette, 50-0 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison. Marquette, a participant in the 1st-ever Cotton Bowl (losing to Texas Christian on New Year's Day 1937), dropped its football program after the 1960 season.

* Number 10 Clemson beat Maryland, 8-0 at Byrd Stadium (now SECU Stadium) in the Washington suburb of College Park, Maryland. Clemson went on to win the Atlantic Coast Conference title.

* Number 11 Mississippi State were upset by Tennessee, 13-8 at Crump Stadium in Memphis. Although the venue was in Tennessee's State, it was much closer to MSU's campus.

* Number 13 Louisiana State beat Hardin-Simmons, 20-6 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. LSU went on to win the Southeastern Conference title, and beat Clemson in the Sugar Bowl, to win the National Championship.

* Number 15 Navy beat Boston University, 28-14 at Nickerson Field in Boston.

* The University of California beat Washington State, 34-14 at California Memorial Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Berkeley. Neither team was then ranked. Cal went on to win the title of the American Association of Western Universities (AAWU, a precursor to the league now known as the Pacific-12 Conference), but lost the Rose Bowl to Iowa.

* Holy Cross beat Syracuse, 14-13 at Fitton Field in Worcester, Massachusetts. Neither team was then ranked. This would be the only game that Syracuse lost in the regular season, and they advance to the Orange Bowl, but were beaten by Oklahoma.

* Texas Christian beat Arkansas, 12-7 at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas. Neither team was then ranked. TCU went on to win the Southwest Conference title, and beat Air Force in the Cotton Bowl.

* Among New Jersey's teams, Rutgers beat Colgate, 21-7 at Colgate Athletic Field (now Andy Kerr Stadium) in Hamilton, New York; while Princeton beat Columbia, 43-8 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

The NHL season began 4 days later; the NBA season, 11 days after that. In English soccer, Arsenal beat Birmingham-area team West Bromwich Albion, 4-3 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury. France? Like most countries on the European continent, they traditionally play soccer on Sundays.

May 30, 1968: Charles de Gaulle Prevents the Next French Revolution

May 30, 1968: The inevitable fall of the government of France has come. But not in the way that was expected: Through an election, not a revolution.

In February, the French Communist Party and the French Section of the Workers' International formed an electoral alliance. Communists had long supported Socialist candidates in elections, but in the "February Declaration," the 2 parties agreed to attempt to form a joint government to replace President Charles de Gaulle and his Gaullist Party.

This was a bold move. de Gaulle had already been seen by the French public as having saved the country twice: Helping to liberate it from the Nazis in 1944, and settling the unrest that brought the Fourth Republic down in 1958, founding the Fifth Republic. The 6-foot-5 de Gaulle was, figuratively, the biggest man in the country.

But now, he was 77 years old, and increasingly conservative. A lot of people thought it was time for a change, and he didn't seem ready to hand the Presidency over to his Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou, also a member of de Gaulle's party, the Union of Democrats for the Republic (L'Union des démocrates pour la République, or UDR), but 20 years younger, and seen as more reasonable.

The French left followed the example of America's left, and engaged university students, who were newly adult and had the most future ahead of them, and thus had the most to lose by keeping the status quo of their country and the world.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, 23, was seen as their leader. His parents were German Jews, who had escaped from the Nazis. The family moved back to Germany when he was 13. He accepted German citizenship so he wouldn’t have to serve in the French Army. Known as Danny the Red, for both his hair color and his politics, he returned to France after the Algerian War of Independence ended.

On March 22, far-left groups, a small number of prominent poets and musicians, and 150 students occupied an administration building at the University of Paris West (now named Paris Nanterre University), and held a meeting in the university council room, about class discrimination in French society and the political bureaucracy that controlled the university's funding.

The university's administration called the police, who surrounded the campus. After the publication of their wishes, the students left the building without any trouble. The authorities hoped that that would be the end of it.

But conflicts between students and authorities at the Nanterre campus kept going, and the administration shut the university down on May 2. On May 6, the National Student Union of France (in French, UNEF), and the union of university teachers called a march to protest the police invasion of the main campus of the University of Paris, the world-famous Sorbonne. More than 20,000 students, teachers and supporters marched toward the Sorbonne, still sealed off by the police, who charged, wielding their batons, as soon as the marchers approached. Hundreds of students were arrested.

The government's heavy-handed reaction brought on a wave of sympathy for the strikers. Many of the nation's more mainstream singers and poets joined the strikers after the police brutality came to light. American artists also began voicing support of the strikers.

The major leftist unions' federations called a one-day general strike and demonstration for May 13. Well over a million people marched through Paris that day, and the police stayed largely out of sight. Pompidou personally announced the release of the prisoners and the reopening of the Sorbonne. However, the surge of strikes did not recede. Instead, the protesters became even more active.

By the middle of May, demonstrations extended to factories, though workers' demands significantly varied from students'. Up to 1/3rd of the country's workforce was on strike. On May 24, 2 people died at the hands of out-of-control rioters. In Lyon, Police Inspector Rene Lacroix died when he was crushed by a driverless truck that rioters sent careening into police lines. In Paris, Phillipe Metherion, 26, was stabbed to death during an argument with another demonstrator.

The Socialists saw an opportunity to act as a compromise between de Gaulle and the Communists. On May 28, Socialist Party Leader François Mitterand, who had been a Resistance fighter and a prisoner of war during World War II, and had won 45 percent of the vote in the last Presidential election, narrowly losing to de Gaulle, declared that "there is no more state," and said he was ready to form a new government.

On the morning of May 29, de Gaulle postponed the meeting of the Council of Ministers (equivalent to a U.S. President's Cabinet) scheduled for that day, and secretly removed his personal papers from the Élysée Palace, the official Presidential residence.

He told his son-in-law, retired General Alain de Boissieu, "I do not want to give them a chance to attack the Élysée. It would be regrettable if blood were shed in my personal defense. I have decided to leave. Nobody attacks an empty palace." (Perhaps he had forgotten that modern France traces its history to July 14, 1789, with the storming of the Bastille, which had only 6 prisoners at the time.)

de Gaulle refused Pompidou's request that he dissolve the National Assembly, as he believed that the UDR would lose the resulting election. At 11:00 AM, he told Pompidou, "I am the past. You are the future. I embrace you."

Georges Pompidou

The government announced that de Gaulle was going to his country home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises before returning the next day, and rumors spread that he would prepare his resignation speech there. However, the presidential helicopter did not arrive in Colombey, and de Gaulle had told no one in the government where he was going. For more than 6 hours, the world did not know where he was. Pompidou was heard to shout, "He has fled the country!"

That was a very un-de Gaulle-like thing to do, unless he had a plan. He did: He went to the headquarters of the French Forces in West Germany, in Baden-Baden, to meet their commander, General Jacques Massu, whom had been a brutal commander during the Algerian War. Massu told de Gaulle exactly what he wanted to hear: The French military, as conservative as ever, would support him against the demonstrators if he wished to remain in power. Massu kept this meeting a secret until 1982.

Jacques Massu

de Gaulle announced that the Council meeting had been rescheduled for the next day, and was back in Colombey by 6:00 PM. The people of France began to realize what they had in de Gaulle, once they realized that he had been missing, but had come back to them one more time. A survey conducted immediately after the crisis found that 20 percent of Frenchmen would have supported a revolution, but a majority of the country would have avoided any action.

On May 30, 500,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Paris, chanting, "Adieu, de Gaulle!" Based on the events of the previous day, they thought they were about to win. But the police and the Army were out, protecting public buildings. There was a lot of noise, but no takeovers.

At 2:30 PM, de Gaulle met with Pompidou and the Council. At 4:30, he broadcast his refusal to resign. He announced an election, scheduled for June 23, and ordered workers to return to work, threatening to institute a state of emergency if they did not.

The leftist demonstration broke up. Immediately after the speech, an even larger crowd, about 800,000, marched through the Champs-Élysées waving the French Tricolor flag. Mitterand talked the leftist parties into accepting the election, and the threat of revolution was over.

People gradually returned to work. The national student union called off street demonstrations. The UDR won the greatest victory in French parliamentary history, taking 353 of 486 seats, to the Socialists' 57 and the Communists' 34.

de Gaulle could have named his new government the Sixth Republic, but chose to keep the Fifth Republic name, to make it sound like a calm continuation -- which, in the end, it was. The Fifth Republic name holds to this day.

But it was not a personal triumph. A post-crisis survey conducted by Mattei Dogan showed that 70 percent of the country saw de Gaulle as "too sure of himself," 69 percent saw him as "too concerned with his personal prestige," 64 percent saw him as "too authoritarian," 63 percent saw him as "too conservative," and 59 percent saw him as "too old to govern." Essentially, the country was ready for "Gaullism without de Gaulle."

de Gaulle finally retired on June 20, 1969, handing the Presidency over to Pompidou, and died on November 9, 1970. That day, Pompidou said, "France is a widow." Pompidou had a relatively peaceful tenure, but died in office on April 2, 1974. Some "future" he turned out to be, although he did last more than twice as long in office as Winston Churchill's right-hand man, Anthony Eden, lasted as Prime Minister of Britain. He remains the only French head of state to die in office since 1932.

He was replaced by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In the subsequent election, Giscard defeated Mitterand. In 1981, Mitterand reversed that result, and became the 1st left-of-center President under the Fifth Republic. He served 2 terms, until 1995. Like de Gaulle, he died a year after leaving office.

The UDR dissolved in 1976, replaced by as the country's main right-of-center party by The Rally for the Republic (Rassemblement pour la République, RPR), founded by Jacques Chirac, who was President from 1995 to 2007. In 2002, the RPR was merged with smaller conservative parties into The Union for a Popular Movement (Union pour un mouvement populaire, UMP). That party dissolved in 2015, replaced by simply "The Republicans" (Les Républicains), currently the nation's main conservative party.

A nation of many revolutions over the last 250 years, most notably the one of 1789 to 1794, France has had political unrest since 1968, but has never again come as close to revolution as that one, which failed.

Massu, the man who really saved France the 3rd time de Gaulle saved it, died in 2002. Shortly after "Le Mai 68," Cohn-Bendit was deported back to Germany. He became a kindergarten teacher, joined the German Green Party, was elected to the European Parliament in 1994, and moved back to France in 1999. He served until 2014. As of May 30, 2022, he is still alive, and still a figure of controversy.

UPDATE: Philippe de Gaulle, Charles' son, an Admiral and a Senator for Paris from 1986 to 2004, died in 2024, at the age of 102. At no time did Charles attempt to set Philippe up as his successor. That would have been seen as the kind of move a king would make, and, in France, acting like a king is still a very unpopular idea.

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May 30, 1968 was a Thursday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees split a doubleheader with the Washington Senators at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees won the opener, 13-4. Stan Bahnsen was the winning pitcher. Mickey Mantle had perhaps his last big day at the plate, going 5-for-5 with 2 home runs (the 523rd and 524th of his career) and 5 RBIs.

The Senators won the nightcap, 6-2. Camilo Pascual, who pitched for the "old" Senators and, after their move, the Minnesota Twins, won this game for the "new" Senators, outpitching Fred Talbot, Jim Bouton, Fritz Peterson and, as Bouton called him, the Dooley Womack. Roy White hit a home run for the Yankees.

* The New York Mets swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-3 and 5-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. In the 1st game, Jerry Koosman outpitched Jim Bunning. In the 2nd game, Dick Selma outpitched Bob Veale. Over the 2 games, Roberto Clemente went 2-for-8 with an RBI.

* The Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves, 11-0 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Mike Cuellar pitched a 7-hit shutout. Hank Aaron got 1 of those hits, but it was a single, not a home run.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-3 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Pete Rose went 1-for-5. Johnny Bench went 1-for-4.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Dave Leonhard pitched a 2-hit shutout. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-4, but had an RBI on a bases-loaded walk. Frank Robinson did not play.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-4, while Rod Carew went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Steve Carlton allowed 8 hits, but kept the shutout. Willie Mays got 1 of those hits. Willie McCovey did not, as he did not play.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the California Angels, 7-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Al Kaline was injured, and did not play.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-2 at the Oakland Coliseum. Sal Bando hit a home run. Rookie Reggie Jackson did not play. Carl Yastrzemski went 2-for-4.

* And the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies were rained out at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 13. The Phillies won the 1st game, 3-1. The Cubs won the 2nd game, 9-1. Over the 2 games, Ernie Banks went 3-for-7 with a home run, a walk, and 2 RBIs.