This Day in History: Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France on this day (April 28) in 1969. He would die of an aneurysm one year later.
I believe that the best recent mention of de Gaulle came from Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder:
“Never listen to a leftist who does not give away his fortune or does not live the exact lifestyle he wants others to follow. What the French call 'the caviar left,' la gauche caviar, or what Anglo-Saxons call champagne socialists, are people who advocate socialism, sometimes even communism, or some political system with sumptuary limitations, while overtly leading a lavish lifestyle, often financed by inheritance—not realizing the contradiction that they want others to avoid just such a lifestyle. It is not too different from the womanizing popes, such as John XII, or the Borgias. The contradiction can exceed the ludicrous as with French president François Mitterrand of France who, coming in on a socialist platform, emulated the pomp of French monarchs. Even more ironic, his traditional archenemy, the conservative General de Gaulle, led a life of old-style austerity and had his wife sew his socks.”
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