Died this Wednesday, Admiral de Gaulle was the only boy and the last surviving child of the founder of the Fifth Republic.
General de Gaulle married Yvonne Vendroux on April 6, 1921. From their union three children were born: Philippe, Élisabeth and Anne. Born on December 28, 1921 in Paris, the eldest of the siblings died in “the night from Tuesday to Wednesday at the National Institution of Invalides” , declared one of his sons, Yves de Gaulle. The two sisters of the last direct descendant of the General also died. Élisabeth, who died in 2013, married General Alain de Boissieu with whom she had a daughter named Anne.
The youngest daughter of the first president of the Ve République, also called Anne, carrier of Down syndrome, died at the age of 20 in 1948. Henriette de Montalembert de Cers, wife of Admiral Philippe de Gaulle, gave birth to four boys: Charles, Yves , Jean, and Pierre.
Charles de Gaulle
The couple’s eldest son, namesake of his paternal grandfather, Charles de Gaulle, was born in 1948. From his marriage to Dolorès Porati, boys were born, Philippe and Édouard.
A graduate of Sciences Po Paris, he first worked as a lawyer, before subsequently becoming a politician. He first appeared on the list of the political party the Union for French Democracy (UDF) led by the former President of the Republic Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in the 1989 European elections, which obtained the greatest number of seats in the European Parliament. The grandson of General de Gaulle was then elected MEP in 1994 on the list of the political party Movement for France (MPF) created by Philippe de Villiers.
While he became closer to Jean-Marie Le Pen from 1998, he ran the following year on the National Front (FN) list in the 1999 European elections, which obtained nearly 6% of the votes. At the same time, the de Gaulle family, outraged by this support for the far-right party, published an article in the newspaper The world. In 2004, the descendant of the man of June 18 left politics.
Yves de Gaulle
Father of two children, Yves de Gaulle, born in 1951, followed in the footsteps of his big brother, also studying at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (IEP). He is also a former student of the National School of Administration (ENA).
Yves de Gaulle began the first 14 years of his career in the public service, first as a civil administrator at the Ministry of Finance, then secretary general of the Privatization Commission, and finally referendum advisor at the Court of Auditors.
He continued his career in the private sector in 1989, working as a business lawyer, then a senior executive within large companies. He then became general manager of the Euler group, general secretary of the Suez group, then rose to the head of the Compagnie nationale du Rhône. In 2016, he became a State Councilor in extraordinary service.
Jean de Gaulle
Jean de Gaulle, born in 1953, obtained a degree in commercial sciences and began his career in accounting.
Member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), the right-wing party resulting from the Gaullist movement, he was elected deputy for Deux-Sèvres in 1986 then deputy for Paris in 1993. He was vice-president of the National Assembly from 1995 to 1997. After being elected locally in Charentes-Maritimes, he was elected councilor of Paris in 1995 and held one of the positions of deputy mayor until 2001. He then joined the Court of Auditors.
Pierre de Gaulle
Pierre de Gaulle is the only one of the siblings not to have engaged in politics. He graduated from Paris Dauphine University as well as a Master’s degree in finance from the prestigious HEC business school. He notably worked in the banking sector in Switzerland, holding a position in the famous Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild (BPER), at the Union Bancaire Privée and even within Banque Heritage.
He made headlines last November when he said he would be “honored to receive Russian citizenship” , according to the state news agency TASS. Having displayed his pro-Putin positions since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, he also estimated that “NATO lost in this conflict.”
Claiming to have the same positions as his grandfather, he asserts that Russia was seen by the latter “as the essential reverse ally because she participated in his conception of the balance of Europe”he explained to Figaro in January 2023. “I am struck by this single thought which systematically presents Vladimir Putin as the villain and his Ukrainian counterpart [Volodymyr Zelensky] like the nice one”, he added. But his own family doesn’t share his views.
Anne de Laroullière
Anne, born in 1959, is the daughter of Alain de Boissieu and Élisabeth de Gaulle, the General’s daughter. She married Étienne Aubergy-Brossier de Laroullière.
Between 2004 and 2011, she became vice-president of the Anne-de-Gaulle foundation, created in 1945 by her grandparents and supporting young women with disabilities. Three years later, after the death of their daughter suffering from Down syndrome, they named the foundation in her name. Since its creation, the foundation has always been chaired by a family member.