Purpelia wrote:Honestly I'd say that coup was their patriotic duty. I mean, it's not like they tried to bring France down or something. They were defending what was left of the French empire from the weakness and moral defeatism of its people. Had they succeeded maybe France would now be leading Europe instead of marching down the road to becoming a province of Germany along side the rest of us.
You can rah rah all you like about muh empire but when Germany is winning the economic race hands-down it's rather hard to provide a persuasive counterargument to aligning with Germany. The last few times the French have tried to halt German political expansion even with the "strength" (read: liability) of their empire at their back, it didn't go so well.
de Gaulle was right to let Algeria go. Far from being a useful hedge against Germany, the distractions of maintaining a crumbling empire would have diverted attention from Europe and drained France of money and manpower. The old model of empire was crumbling and no amount of hemming and hawing from a middle-tier power was ever going to stop it.