Two things collided to make last night’s premier viewing of the sweeping historical 159-minute film “De Gaulle Part One: Resistance” by Antonin Baudry extremely relevant to the moral capacity of human beings and what transpired across the country: the Blue Wave in Texas and the French people’s will to overcome injustice and servitude.
Texas elected a Democratic female Latina governor, sent a Democrat to the US Senate, and witnessed a political shift that challenged decades of Republican dominance.. The people of Texas voted for that, just like the people of France stood behind De Gaulle when most of his comrades did not.
De Gaulle’s Resistance movement was based on a conviction of loyalty to the ideals upheld by France: liberty, equality, and justice, those same ideals our Statue of Liberty symbolizes for the U.S.A. (Thanks to France.) Merci!
One of De Gaulle’s Resistance fighters died at close range with seven or eight men shooting him. He was just a boy. Parallels to young men being shot by ICE are chilling. That young man who stood for France was Fernand Bonnier de la Chapelle, 20 years old. Fernand Bonnier de la Chapelle assassinated Admiral Francois Darlan in Algiers on December 24, 1942, and authorities executed him two days later for his heroic act.
Darlan’s assassination was one of the extraordinary episodes of the war. A former senior figure in the traitorous Vichy government and in charge of the French Naval fleet, Darlan had collaborated with the Germans. Following the Allied Landings in North Africa in November 1942, American General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Allied command accepted him as the authority in the region. The decision outraged De Gaulle and the Resistance and those who believed France’s liberation could not be entrusted to someone associated with Vichy.
De Gaulle’s brilliance and resistance was built on the conviction that France was greater than the government that had surrendered it, just like the new Governor and Senator of Texas and the people of this state believed in brotherhood, justice, and equality for all citizens of the state. Even when Churchill betrayed him, De Gaulle never wavered from his principles.
De Gaulle faced isolation, opposition, and repeated challenges to his authority throughout his political journey, but he maintained his commitment to morality and belief in those who did not surrender to the evil of the Third Reich. He gave his heart to restoring his country to its democratic ideals. Eventually, Churchill’s cabinet members, against their previous advice to the Prime Minister, fought to reinstate De Gaulle as the official representative of France in England and then later the world.
What stayed with me as I watched the film teary-eyed and absorbed was De Gaulle’s fortitude and strength of character, integrity and honor. It brought me back to the place I was sitting in Texas. It brought me back to the reasons I fight for what I believe in without wavering.
A human’s moral capacity is ultimately revealed by their choices. Do human beings stand behind the principles they espouse? Or do they have the courage to resist what they believe is wrong to the bitter end?
Many have given their lives in Texas, unwillingly and willingly to fight the outrageous crimes of ICE, Abbott’s incendiary actions against Texans and those of his lackeys. The people of Texas made their choice at the ballot box, like the Resistance fighters did in France during WWII.
The film stars Simon Abkarian as Charles de Gaulle, Simon Russell Beale as Winston Churchill, Florian Lesieur as the young Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, Benoit Magimel as General Pierre Koenig, and Mathieu Kassovitz as Admiral Darlan.
It was shown at AFS Cinema, 6259 Middle Fiskville Road, 78752, as part of the monthly French Premiere film series. For more information, visit https://frenchpremiere.com
I can’t wait for part two of the film to be shown in Austin.
For a review of a recent book on de Gaulle, view this in SunNewsAustin: