Indeed, the Gaullist tradition ends with him.

Moreover, he benefited from the divisions in the Gaullist party.

Jacques Chaban Delmas ( 7 March 1915 10 November 2000) was a French Gaullist politician.

Ministers who sympathized with the settlers, notably the long time Gaullist Jacques Soustelle, were sacked.

Many grandiose Gaullist economic projects from the Concorde supersonic airplane to a national computer industry failed.

He is nostalgic for the 1960's and the Gaullist ideology that shaped both France and himself.

Michel Jobert (11 September 1921 25 May 2002) was a French politician of the left wing Gaullist orientation.

Massu, a convinced Gaullist, should have known better than to say such home truths publicly, whatever his own frustrations.

Sarkozy is philosophically a conservative, but an ultra liberal on economic issues, making him totally foreign to the Gaullist tradition.

Moreover, both candidates embody continuity with Chirac s Gaullist side for Sarkozy and with François Mitterrand for Royal as much as rupture.

But Russia appears to be in a Gaullist mood, and has other outstanding issues causing friction with the US and Europe.

While he is very French in his upbringing and education he does not speak English! he is nevertheless neither a Jacobin nor a Gaullist.

If, contrary to the traditional Gaullist vision, multi polarity is not bringing stability, but instead generating chaos, there are two reasons for this outcome.

But culture and nationality, or even Gaullist chauvinism, cannot explain everything. There is an important political dimension to the pro or anti British sentiments in Europe.

Sarkozy imposed himself on the Gaullist movement against the will of President Jacques Chirac indeed, he snatched the presidency of the UMP despite Chirac s active opposition.

The Gaullist tradition has also been maintained by an independent diplomatic corps that tends towards non alliance with allies and is often perceived as perfidious and arrogant.

He seems to belong to an era when France considered Europe a French formal garden. He is nostalgic for the 1960's and the Gaullist ideology that shaped both France and himself.

The fourth lesson follows from Sarkozy s stance as a classical ultra liberal. While he is very French in his upbringing and education he does not speak English! he is nevertheless neither a Jacobin nor a Gaullist.

The most striking demonstration of this Republican alliance was the 2002 Presidential election, when, with Socialist support, Jacques Chirac, the Gaullist incumbent, received 85 of the popular vote in the run off against Jean Marie Le Pen.

Some French see the EU as a community where national interests inexorably converge. At the other extreme is the Gaullist belief that the EU is nothing more than a power multiplier for France to defend its own national interests.

The Gaullist dream of creating an independent power center never succeeded, but the role of awkward partner has given a distinctive flavor to French diplomacy, and it may be equally viable for a shrunken, proud, but no longer hegemonic Russia.

In France, by contrast, the statist tradition which, as Tocqueville so aptly observed, harks back to the Ancien Régime, and which is equally shared today by both the Gaullist and socialist ideologies is strongly linked to a marked distaste toward the strictures of economic liberalism.

Sarkozy has now broken with this so called Gaullist Mitterrandist orientation, which was based on the persistence of a belief in French exceptionalism in the field of foreign affairs. This does not mean that Sarkozy s France will toe the American line on all international issues.