French politicians can’t get enough of ‘De Gaulle’
What the left says
Lean left“French Left and Right Both Claim de Gaulle's Legacy Ahead of 2027 Vote”
For left-leaning observers, the spectacle of French politicians queuing up to identify with de Gaulle is as revealing for what it obscures as for what it signals. De Gaulle's legacy is complicated: the General suppressed anticolonial movements, centralized power aggressively, and had a fraught relationship with labor movements and the left. Progressive commentators note that right-wing politicians invoking his name tend to cherry-pick the nationalist and statist dimensions of his legacy while sidelining the parts that complicate their platforms. The film's five-hour running time gives it an almost ritualistic weight, and the fact that political elites are treating it as required viewing says something about how French political culture continues to center a mythologized, predominantly male vision of national leadership. The 2027 election remains wide open, and critics on the left argue that hiding behind a historical colossus is easier than offering concrete policy answers to France's very 21st-century problems.
What the right has said
Inferred right“De Gaulle Film Reminds French Politicians What Strong Leadership Actually Looks Like”
For right-leaning French politicians, the de Gaulle film arrives as a timely reminder of what decisive, sovereignty-first leadership looks like after years of institutional drift. De Gaulle built the Fifth Republic's strong executive precisely because he believed parliamentary fragmentation was France's chronic disease, and with the current National Assembly fractured into competing blocs, that diagnosis feels freshly relevant. Conservative and nationalist figures have embraced the film as cultural validation for platforms emphasizing national sovereignty, firm executive authority, and a France that acts in its own interests on the world stage. The film's length and seriousness, five full hours, positions it as something weightier than entertainment, more like a civic text. Right-leaning commentators argue that the rush to claim de Gaulle's legacy reflects a genuine public hunger for leadership that transcends the technocratic centrism that has dominated French politics in recent years.