"The Saga of the Presidential Elections": From Charles de Gaulle to Emmanuel Macron, the story of a French passion

Book. This is undoubtedly the most breathtaking of the series. A French passion where the future of the country is at stake, a democratic fever that eclipses all others, a soap opera that redraws the political landscape each time, a spectacle on which millions of French people are hanging. Sixty years after the first presidential election , Gérard Courtois, eminent political journalist, former editor-in-chief of Le Monde , brings back to life The Saga of the Presidential Elections (Perrin, 464 pages, 25 euros).

For the first time since the introduction of direct universal suffrage in 1962, the French were called upon in December 1965 to elect the President of the Republic. Until then responsible for inaugurating chrysanthemums, the latter was destined to become "the keystone that covers and binds the edifice of our institutions," decreed General de Gaulle.

This first presidential campaign created a surprise: the man of June 18 was put in a runoff by François Mitterrand, at the time described as a "Little Thing" by Jean-Paul Sartre's magazine Les Temps Modernes . Gérard Courtois reports on the superb joust between the two finalists, a few days before the second round.

"France is everything at once, it is all the French. France is not the left! France is not the right!" declared the General, comparing the election with "what happens in a house: the mistress of the house, the housewife, wants to have a vacuum cleaner, she wants to have a refrigerator, a washing machine and even, if possible, a car: that's the movement. And, at the same time, she doesn't want her husband to go partying everywhere, the boys to put their feet up on the table and the girls not to come home at night: that's what order is (...) . Well, that's true for France too! We need progress, but we don't need chaos. But the party system is chaos."

Two days later, François Mitterrand replied scathingly: "How do you choose a President of the Republic? If I understand General de Gaulle correctly, he must not be chosen from the right, the left, or the center. So I search in vain. Will he have to be recruited from the royal house, or from the House of Rothschild, or from the Jockey Club? Will it be necessary to deny that there have always been families of spirit in our Republic? Will it be necessary to deny that there are social categories, needs, interests, doctrines in our politics? The role of the Head of State as practiced by General de Gaulle does not correspond to any republican tradition."

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