Yes for sure, but thats not enough. Otherwise we would see a lot of similar moral leaders ie in Africa or South America and reality is very different, isn't it.
De Gaulle was a general not a politician, though. Until he went to England instead of surrendering like most other French generals and politicians.
Not exactly a career path that’s easy to follow in any stable western country. You can’t really just jump from the military to government regardless of how capable and qualified you are.
Back in his time, it used to be the norm though. Douglas MacArthur and Eisenhower come to mind.
Even today, a not-insignificant number of US reps and congressmen are people who have served in the military. Same goes for Singapore, India and Indonesia (if we're going by stable democracies). I think Europe is an exception to the norm, even if there are some cases (like the current Czech President).
Yes as a consequence of WW2 not before (outside of other major wars) or currently.
I’m not saying that there is anything wrong or particularly strange about a former officer or general standing for office.
But it’s not quite the same, de Gaulle, Eisenhower and (to some extent McArthur) were pretty much slingshotted to the top because of who they were and what they did during the war. They skipped all the traditional steps and “filters” that most politicians have to pass and had huge amounts of political capital. That doesn’t really happen during peacetime in stable countries.
e.g. US had 5 presidents which didn’t hold any elected office before becoming president:
3 of them (Taylor, Grant, Eisenhower) directly leveraged their success as military commanders during major wars to get elected, Hoover was a cabinet secretary for 8 years so he barely counts and the last one is Trump.
How do you suggest he suddenly appeared in a government in 1940? De Gaulle had been in contact with Paul Reynaud since 1936. He was also in contact with several other high-ranking politicians, and actively trying to convince them to support his ideas on reshaping the army.
Tried to create a pan-African currency backed by gold, French government intervened with backing of NATO, a whole region with millions of people was pushed into misery.
Yeah I imagine it forges you better than business schools, 90% of french politics come from two schools, they more or less all have the same background, and then they rotate between government jobs for a few decades before finishing in the private sector
