It is a question relatively difficult to answer, because the probability is that a Gaullist will be elected after De Gaulle. So your question comes to, What will be the difference between Gaullism without De Gaulle and Gaullism with De Gaulle?

The movement called Gaullist is so intimately linked with the personality of De Gaulle that the departure of the personality means a sort of mutation in what is called Gaullism.

In all probability the present majority, the Gaullist majority in the National Assembly, will stay. In all probability the next President of Republic will be Georges Pompidou, who was created as a political figure by De Gaulle even though relations between the two men have been slightly tense since the crisis [of riots and strikes] last May.

One thing will disappear: That is the beautiful theater–the art of speaking, of acting out literature. What will disappear is the charisma of a unique man. What will disappear is the poetry of Gaullism.

But you know, below the poetry of De Gaulle, the day-to-day running of the state and the management of its economic affairs went on in a traditionally French way, with pressure groups competing for influence just the way they did under the Third and Fourth Republics. So the fundamental change will be in the eyes of the people. It will be from poetry to prose–from a historical hero to an ordinary man.

With or without De Gaulle, the problems of the coming months were to be economic ones, and even De Gaulle began to feel the pressure. After the May crisis of last year, the frame was in trouble and the problem of economic balance had become very difficult. Even De Gaulle had to take measures which were distasteful to him.

I would venture to suggest that the problems De Gaulle was facing influenced his decision to risk a referendum, because the future was not so terribly attractive to him. He was interested in a kind fundamental, ideological reform of French society. Pompidou will be fundamentally interested in improving the economic situation and bringing French political life back to a more normal state.

Pompidou will not change French foreign policy overnight. I believe the main lines of French foreign policy will remain the same for a time.

But Pompidou will be slightly more European than De Gaulle. He will not be able to use, in relations with the Germans, the Italians and the British, the same sort of abrupt style which was part of De Gaulle’s charm for his supporters, and which caused irritation among his adversaries.

It is an open question whether devaluation of the franc will at some future date become necessary. But there is no immediate reason for it, no urgency.

It is also a question of revaluation of the [West German] mark. It seems to me that the revaluation of the mark is extremely probable after the German elections in the autumn, and at that time there may be the necessity of having a small devaluation of the franc in relation to the dollar.

But if everything goes normally there should be no immediate danger, and it is not excluded that people with money will have more confidence in Pompidou than they did in General de Gaulle. After all, one of the reasons for De Gaulle’s defeat was that half of the French middle class, especially people responsible for the economic life of the country, had lost their confidence in De Gaulle.

It is perfectly possible, you know, that the first phase after De Gaulle will be much easier than commonly believed. We already know the Communist Party is firmly determined not to create any trouble, and there is no sign, for the time being, that the ordinary Frenchman is being terrified by De Gaulle’s adversaries.

We are speaking only days after the referendum, and already De Gaulle has largely disappeared. Nobody quotes him or talks about him anymore. The mourning period was one day, and then it was candidacy of Pompidou.

You know, politics is a dirty business, and ingratitude is the definition of a great people.

I’m not so convinced of that. De Gaulle had a permanent philosophy of international relations, namely, a philosophy of permanent conflict. For him, the world was a jungle, and nation states were cold monsters. He believed in the nation states and their absolute sovereignty.

So his philosophy was permanent, and from this philosophy he deduced the necessity for opportunistic attitudes, because in a jungle you have to adapt to the situation.

In spite of all the changes, he had permanent goals–the maximum of independence from the United States without losing security which comes from American involvement in Europe. In regard to the Soviet Union, he always tried to have good relations with Eastern states, sometimes more with Poland and Rumania, sometimes more with the Soviet Union. It all depended on the situation.

What he did not want was to be a prisoner of Western Europe and to be a satellite of the United States. And that was the permanent energy which expressed itself in words like national independence.

I think Pompidou will use the same words, like national independence, but I’m inclined to believe from what I know of Pompidou that he’s aware that great policy is impossible for second-rate states like Western Germany, Italy and France, and so he would be willing to go more in the direction of closer European co-operation if it’s still possible. By that I mean, if the Germans still are ready for that–which is not certain at all.

Yes, I would say that, after the Czech experience, the French military people–without believing very much in the danger of a Russian invasion–thought that it would be reasonable to take care of the improbable hypothesis that the Russians would like to do something in Western Europe.

If you assume, which seems reasonable, that the only military danger, if there is one, comes from the East, it’s better to have closer military contacts with NATO without fundamentally changing policy. Recently the Chief of the General Staff wrote an article which was something like a return to the theory of flexible response in nuclear strategy.

You know, we professors have discovered that when a state has a very limited nuclear force it always speaks about massive retaliation. But when it has a little bit more and the possibility of a choice, it begins to speak more sensibly, and says, “Of course you cannot threaten massive retaliation if one soldier crosses the line.”

Yes, that tendency already started before the departure of General de Gaulle. It was largely the result of the May crisis of last year on the one hand and the personality of Nixon on the other. Perhaps the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia also played a part.

The events of May, 1968, made French currency precarious, so the policy of asking for the reform of the international monetary system lost a great deal of its credibility while the franc was threatened.

The Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia showed very clearly there was no chance of having a liberal, united Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, at least during the lifetime of De Gaulle in power.

Thirdly, you know, De Gaulle was very good as a forecaster of American policy. He always believed in the future of Nixon. He received Nixon at the Elysées Palace at the time when Nixon was at the low point of his career. So Nixon felt a certain gratitude to De Gaulle, and De Gaulle felt a fatherly liking for the good boy who had become President of the United States.

So all that brought about the between France and the United States without closing the gap between the main conceptions of the United States and France–if the United States still has any clear conception about international relations with Mr. Nixon as President, which is a debatable point.

If Pompidou is the next President–which still is not certain, even though it is probable–he will slowly take a certain distance from the Gaullist line of foreign policy. But in the initial phase he will maintain something of a continuity, using the same words.

As regards Britain, it is a very difficult problem, because the main point of De Gaulle’s argument was that Britain cannot enter the Common Market without changing it fundamentally. And that seems to me a very good point–and a true one. De Gaulle’s main point was that either we stay in the Common Market without changing it, or we accept Britain and others in a looser economic organization.

My guess is that Pompidou will take the same line. Wanting to be more European, Pompidou should try first to restore the Common Market, which means finding a way out of the agricultural impasse and possibly also finding some form of political organization of the Six [France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg] before trying to come to terms with Britain.

My guess is that first there will be an effort to save the Common Market. That is the main problem now, before you begin very difficult negotiations for the entry of Great Britain.

I agree that, in all probability, in the course of time the new team will be less rigidly French-minded, less France-centered than De Gaulle was. I am inclined to believe they will try to give new life to the European idea, if it is still feasible. Great Britain will come second.

According to De Gaulle, nothing is permanent. If Pompidou is elected next month, he has with him a very compact majority. Pompidou, if elected, will be in for seven years. The Assembly runs until 1973, so until then we will have a Gaullist President and a Gaullist majority.

The question you are really asking is whether the Gaullist party will remain united. I would say “Yes” for a very simple reason: The present majority in the Assembly was elected as much through Mr. Pompidou as through General de Gaulle, and that was the key reason De Gaulle wanted the referendum.

Nobody could be sure to what extent the Gaullist election victory last June was a victory of De Gaulle personally or the success of Pompidou or the success of just fear. The present majority recognizes itself as much in Pompidou as in De Gaulle. A large part of the Gaullist party has for many months preferred Pompidou to De Gaulle. Pompidou is really the expression of the Gaullist party today.

I do not believe Mr. Pompidou is a man of great dreams. He is a man of great will.

There is a good chance that if the next President is Pompidou he will be able to maintain to a large extent the tradition created by De Gaulle-namely, that the focus of power is the Presidency of the Republic.

Being elected by universal suffrage and with a strong majority in the Assembly, he will be able to take a man as Prime Minister who will not be a rival.

It is. Nobody can be sure that in 1973, after the next election, there still will be the same compact coherence in the Gaullist majority. Clearly the danger of the system is the possibility of conflict between the President and the majority of the Assembly.

My guess is that Pompidou or any succeeding Government would try to take again a neutral position toward Israel and the Arab countries. They would do this because I’m convinced it would be in the best interests of France.

But there is a great difficulty–that is, going back on the embargo, you lose in one minute what you have won in relation to Arab states and the underdeveloped world. After losing so much on one side, it’s not a good idea to lose as much on the other. So at least in the initial stage the change will be more in the way the French Ambassador speaks at the four-power conference in New York.

But in any case, the conference will bring no results.

Ah, the poor French left will be permanently impotent as long as it is divided between the Communist and the non-Communist left.

The Socialist Party is an old one and a decadent one, and the creation of a new one is a failure. And the Communist Party is still there, still a force with hopes for the future. They are a little frightened of the new left, which made such an impact during the May crisis. But the Communist Party already has recovered from the shock of May. The Communists are today more powerful in the universities than before, more powerful in the trade-unions than before. So they remain an important part of French life, but without clear hopes for the foreseeable future of coming to power.

It may be that this malaise will go on, and I’m inclined to believe that in one form or another there will be agitation, protest, because that’s the style of democracy in this time of trouble. Look what you have in the United States, and now this sort of creeping French-style crisis in Italy.

But it may be that with a more ordinary or prosaic man in power, part of the malaise will disappear because there will be more connection between the center of power–the President and the Prime Minister–and what’s going on in the country.

In my view it was partly created by the unfortunate choice of an inexperienced Prime Minister, Couve de Murville, who needed time to get used to the job. But it was due also to the fact that De Gaulle had a conservative majority–and at the same time had grandiose, vague, attractive and terrifying ideas of the fundamental reform of society which did not appease the people of the left, but which created a great deal of anxiety among the people of the right.

Nobody knew what he would do next, and he lost the referendum probably because the people had the feeling that today he is asking us to say “Yes” to all sorts of proposals we are not able to judge. What will he ask next time?

So it’s not excluded that in normal times the Pompidou regime will be more stable. But I do concede that, if there’s an exceptional crisis like last May, it would be easier to find a way out with De Gaulle than with Pompidou.

Like any Frenchman, I feel sad that De Gaulle should go in this way, but I’m not sure that, politically, it’s so bad for the country.