DeGaulle had an unusual sense of his theatrical role on the world stage. This was reflected in his considerable sang froid after several attempts on his life, one which was treated as une plaisanterie de mauvais goût( a joke in bad taste) while after a later attempt he was said to have quipped, dommage, ça aurait été une belle sortie ( too bad, that would have been a nice exit).
It wasn't, however, only in Canada where he was controversial. His efforts to employ an independent foreign policy for France were constantly lampooned in the American press. Long before the "freedom fries" epoch during the Iraq War, francophobia had become a fashionable bias in the US. At the time, my wife was working at the French consulate in NYC. I can remember one day she came home in tears after enduring an anti-French diatribe by a cab driver, who must have somehow detected her faint accent.
DeGaulle had an unusual sense of his theatrical role on the world stage. This was reflected in his considerable sang froid after several attempts on his life, one which was treated as une plaisanterie de mauvais goût( a joke in bad taste) while after a later attempt he was said to have quipped, dommage, ça aurait été une belle sortie ( too bad, that would have been a nice exit).
It wasn't, however, only in Canada where he was controversial. His efforts to employ an independent foreign policy for France were constantly lampooned in the American press. Long before the "freedom fries" epoch during the Iraq War, francophobia had become a fashionable bias in the US. At the time, my wife was working at the French consulate in NYC. I can remember one day she came home in tears after enduring an anti-French diatribe by a cab driver, who must have somehow detected her faint accent.