Cold War on High and Unity from Below: The French Communist Party and the Catholic Church in the Early Years of the Gaullist Fifth Republic

Abstract

In 1958, the French political regime changed dramatically. After 12 years of recurrent crisis and amid a bloody war of decolonisation in French Algeria, the Fourth Republic collapsed, was voted out and replaced by a new Fifth Republic, ushered in by General Charles de Gaulle and his supporters. De Gaulle went on to preside over and dominate French politics for the next decade, thus prompting leading commentators to refer to ‘the Gaullist Republic’ or ‘state’.