as early As the thirties, De Gaulle believed in the future of the media. In the first volume of his memoirs At the edge of the sword, he ensures that the TSF is in the process of becoming a weapon of war. The story is going to give him reason. The German propaganda on Radio Stuggart, has been heavily involved in the French defeat of 1940. The appeal of 18 June 1940, at the microphone of the BBC, has mobilized those willing to fight for a Free France.
read also : Appeal of 18 June: the BBC, on this day, a legend was born
In 1958, he became the first politician to understand the impact , on the French, of the early days of television. The State monopoly on the RTF, then the ORTF, allows him to make the pass, as naturally as possible (well not all since its first appearance on the screen), his word, presidential. Measuring how the bombastic style of its predecessors is no longer current, it gives a new tone to the interventions that he wants rare and brief.
read also : Yves de Gaulle: “general de Gaulle was hated by the ruling classes and loved by the people”
In a time where the prompter does not exist, he chooses not to read his notes, but absorb them. He works his style to give his speech a mixture of rigor and false improvisation. It happens to him and pretend to pick up his words. He shall avoid actions and gestures that may distract, if only for a moment, the attention of the French. It frequently happens, at the end of a recording at the Elysée palace, to exclaim : “I have not been very good. “
His entourage, showing himself to be reassuring, he gives his green light to the director, admitting a regret : not having a voice deeper and more harmonious. But, he can’t do anything. False modesty for the man nicknamed by the English “General Micro” ?
