Plot
On October 4, 2018, France celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Fifth Republic. It is a republic born in the throes of the Algerian War and one which—from the day it was founded by General de Gaulle until the presidency of a very Jupiterian Emmanuel Macron—has been assailed as a “Republican monarchy” by partisans of a more assertive parliamentarian state. By revisiting the struggle of those who dared oppose the new regime — only to suffer a crushing defeat on September 28, 1958, when they were barely able to garner 20% of the vote against the constitutional text — this film shines a powerful new light on the origins of the Fifth Republic and its consequences for the next 60 years. It is a constitutional debate that planted the seeds for a complete upheaval of the French political landscape, on the left in particular, and set the country in motion toward what would be called the Union of the Left.
Trailer
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Cast
Philippe Saada
Narrator (voice)
Pierre Pflimlin
Self (archive footage)
Raoul Salan
Self (archive footage)
Jacques Massu
Self (archive footage)
Pierre Joxe
Self
Jean-François Sirinelli
Self
Charles de Gaulle
Self (archive footage)
Pierre Mendès France
Self (archive footage)
Charles Hernu
Self (archive footage)
Édouard Daladier
Self (archive footage)
Anicet Le Pors
Self
François Mitterrand
Self (archive footage)
Michel Debré
Self (archive footage)
Antoine Pinay
Self (archive footage)
Guy Mollet
Self (archive footage)
André Malraux
Self (archive footage)
Jean-Louis Debré
Self
Félix Houphouët-Boigny
Self (archive footage)
Claude Bourdet
Self (archive footage)
René Coty
Self (archive footage)
Fernandel
Self (archive footage)
Yves Montand
Self (archive footage)
Jacques Duclos
Self (archive footage)
Paul Reynaud
Self (archive footage)
Waldeck Rochet
Self (archive footage)
