2023-06-18 10:56:00
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“Should hope disappear? No.” How a rebel general launched resistance against the Nazis on British radio. Commented speech.
By Francis Simonis Photo of General Charles de Gaulle circa 1942. United States Library of Congress. Published on 04/12/2016 at 8:01 p.m. – Modified on 06/18/2023 at 10:56 a.m.
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Elisabeth de Miribel (1915-2005), who was General de Gaulle’s secretary between 1940 and 1944, is formal: she never heard the call of June 18, 1940. Yet she was in London that day. What’s more, she herself typed the text from the manuscript submitted by a brigadier general on a temporary basis, under-secretary of state for war and national defense of a resigning government! But who, in France, listens to the evening broadcasts of the BBC, English radio, in the spring of 1940?
Since June 14, Paris has been occupied by German troops and millions of French people are jostling on the roads of the exodus. On June 16, the President of the Republic Albert Lebrun (1871-1950) entrusts Marshal Philippe Pétain (1856-1951) with the care of…
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