On 18 June 1940, Charles de Gaulle, then a little known junior army officer, sat in a BBC studio in London and made his famous rallying call for the French to resist the Nazi occupation and its puppet Vichy government. In the eyes of Winston Churchill, de Gaulle was an arrogant, stubborn and defiant thorn in the side of the allies, but the Frenchman never stopped believing in the greatness of France and the need for resistance. Now that story of defiance has become an unexpected hit among France’s younger filmgoers.
A new two part biopic, La Bataille de Gaulle, has become a surprise summer hit, pulling in five million viewers since its release in June. The film, which opens in British cinemas on 28 August and 19 September, is holding its own against Hollywood blockbusters like Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey. The success is not solely because cinemas have offered cool refuge from the successive heatwaves.
The production is directed by Antonin Baudry, a French diplomat and former ministerial adviser, and is adapted from A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle, the 2018 biography by Julian Jackson, a professor of history at Queen Mary University of London. Both installments run close to three hours, and the project is reported to have cost up to £80 million.
The first film, L’Âge de fer (Iron Age), follows de Gaulle’s journey to London in June 1940 and the founding of the Free French forces. It centres on the Battle of Bir Hakeim, in which 3,700 Free French soldiers held out in the Libyan desert against 37,000 Nazi troops commanded by Erwin Rommel for 16 days, allowing Britain’s Eighth Army to retreat. The second, J’écris ton nom (I Write Your Name), covers the remainder of the war through to the liberation of France in 1944.
Simon Abkarian, who played the Bond villain Alex Dimitrios in Casino Royale, takes the role of General de Gaulle, while the acclaimed British Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale portrays Winston Churchill. Baudry told French radio that he wanted the films to “speak to young people” and to address “the themes of war, resistance and engagement”.
From early disappointment to word of mouth
The biopic appeared to be a flop after its initial release. To win over a younger audience, the distributor Pathé organised watch parties hosted by the YouTube and Instagram influencer Inoxtag, giving young guests the chance to meet Baudry. Local councils offered free tickets to students, and soon word began to spread.
Outside a central Paris cinema last week, a business student named Alex said he and his friends had enjoyed the film. “We heard about it on social media and decided to see what it was all about,” he explained. “We’re taught about the Free French and De Gaulle in school, but there were a lot of things I didn’t know. It was interesting to see how Paris students heeded De Gaulle’s call to resist.”
A resonant figure in a divided country
Historians argue the enthusiastic audience reflects a broader search for a unifying figure at a time of deep political division. Alya Aglan, a professor at the Panthéon-Sorbonne university in Paris and coauthor of the bestselling book De Gaulle, France and the World, said: “In the history of France, we have always had a ‘providential man’, someone who arrived at the right time and turns a situation of weakness into a position of strength.”
Aglan said young viewers are discovering “parts of a story they did not know: a man who knew failures, hesitation, hard knocks and who embodied the spirit of resistance because he remained himself against everything even at the cost of being occasionally ridiculous.” She added: “There is emotion, there is information they didn’t know and it resonates with today’s young particularly in the run-up to a presidential election in which we will find ourselves in a very divisive situation.”
The political backdrop is significant. France will hold a presidential election next year, and current polls suggest the race may come down to the far-right National Rally and the far-left France Unbowed. The historian Henry Rousso, a specialist in the second world war, said: “There are very few films in French cinema that can be called a historical ‘epic’ and this is one of them. The director has succeeded perhaps because it is one of French history’s greatest epics.” He added: “De Gaulle was an exceptional character in his lifetime and he remains one for the French today when there is no equivalent political figure.”
Not everyone is convinced. Arnaud Teyssier, a historian and de Gaulle biographer, dismissed the film as a “comic strip” that failed to capture its subject. Writing in Le Point, Teyssier acknowledged that the film “is not without great appeal: it had a big budget, good distribution and is based on a rightly respected biography. But the disappointment is equally great.” He argued that de Gaulle’s elusive demeanour makes him far harder to portray than Churchill, “for whom one need only cast a portly actor who cracks one good joke after another while always puffing on a cigar.”
Nathalie Cieutat, deputy director general of distribution at Pathé Films, said the company’s own research showed “it is the theme of resistance that has made the film particularly popular to the young.” That theme appears to resonate well beyond the cinema. Aglan said many French people, facing a choice between extremes they do not want, might look to de Gaulle’s example. “When French people are divided and faced with the extreme right and extreme left and wondering who to vote for when they don’t want either, they would like to have the choice of a providential man or woman who can save us from such terrible choices,” she said. “De Gaulle gives hope because he resisted and right now everyone is thinking about how to resist.”
With five million spectators and counting, La Bataille de Gaulle has clearly struck a chord, especially with younger filmgoers. Whether the enthusiasm endures beyond the summer remains to be seen, but for now, the story of a man who refused to give in has found a powerful new audience.
