A Modern Gaullism, Not Libertarianism, Will Crush Christian-Nationalism Within Our Church
"It is not tolerable, it is not possible, that from so much death, so much sacrifice and ruin, so much heroism, a greater and better humanity shall not emerge."
Charles de Gaulle
If you have been fortunate enough to enjoy watching the recent De Gaulle film, then you will know that the premier Gaullist military hero, General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, who actively fought against the collaborationist Vichy regime, features very prominently in the epic second part of this great duology.
Interestingly, Leclerc was born into a traditionalist Catholic family, a background that sometimes aligned more closely with Marshal Pétain’s so-called "National Revolution".
Yet, much like the Gaullist priest and Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu, Leclerc’s devout Catholic faith inspired him to completely reject Vichy’s Nazi collaboration and fight for the Gaullist republican cause.
For me, the often-overlooked genius of Gaullism can be found in the way General de Gaulle managed to break the historic link between Catholic Integralism, absolute monarchism and clerical fascism. In doing so, he reconciled the majority of French Catholics, like Leclerc and d’Argenlieu, to his Fifth Republic and secular democracy.
This is an even greater achievement when we consider the fact that the French Republic was first established through the bloody Red Terror, carried out by several prominent revolutionary Jacobins who were deist Freemasons, anti-clerical and atheistic.
Today, modern Catholics around the world are still required to navigate a similar political context, especially now, as we watch the current rise of far-right Christian-Nationalism alongside an increasingly atheistic and anti-clerical libertarian left.
A Christian-Nationalism which looks and sounds very much like Charles Maurras’s far-right ideology of Maurrassisme and his fascistic Action Française movement, which heavily inspired the authoritarian framework of Marshal Pétain’s Vichy France during the war.
For example, there is Kevin Roberts, the President of the Heritage Foundation and chief architect behind the conservative right-wing Project 2025. There is the odious Steve Bannon, a former White House advisor who identifies as a "proud Christian nationalist".
Worse, there is the creepy white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who blends explicit neo-fascist views with radical traditionalist Catholic rhetoric, while frequently pushing Christian-Nationalism and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
And it is not just the laity. There is the now-excommunicated Vatican diplomat and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, still peddling his far-right, deep-state conspiracy theories and QAnon rhetoric.
In Canada, there is Faith Goldy, the Catholic far-right white-nationalist political commentator who travelled to Virginia for the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and appeared as a guest on a podcast hosted by a neo-Nazi website.
Even here in the UK, we are burdened with the self-described right-wing ‘Old Catholic’ priest, Fr Calvin Robinson, with his straight-armed salutes and his antisemitic tropes.
Only last week, anti-migrant activist Daniel Thomas appeared in court, accused of a number of allegations, including racially aggravated harassment and slashing a dinghy in the English Channel, while wearing rosary beads to his trial.
Therefore, what must we do? How do we prevent these dark forces from spreading their lies and poison throughout our Church and society?
Perhaps there is some inspiration to be found in General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque’s approach to Christian-Nationalism?
Following the Battle of Gabon between the Gaullists and the Vichyites in 1940, General Leclerc ordered a formal Te Deum Mass to be offered to honour the dead and mark the victory of the Free French Forces.
However, when Louis-Michel-François Tardy, the staunchly pro-Vichy Bishop of Libreville, refused to say the Mass, a furious Leclerc immediately had the Bishop arrested and removed from his duties. Leclerc even went so far as to threaten Tardy with a firing squad!
Remarkably, the aforementioned Carmelite priest and high-ranking Free French Admiral, Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu, eventually offered the Mass instead of the Bishop.
These days, nobody needs to be threatened with firing squads or arrested. But perhaps, like Leclerc, we might become much bolder, less timid and more confident in the fact that it is they who are the usurpers and the revolutionaries, while it is we who are the true traditionalists, in both our faith and our social action.
Equally, there remains a rich resource of modern French Catholic intellectuals, writers, theologians, poets and philosophers from this period, who eventually came to side with de Gaulle against Pétain, and who can still inspire and guide us today in our equal rejection of Communism and Fascism.
Those such as François Mauriac, Jacques Maritain, Fr Henri de Lubac and several other prominent Catholic intellectuals vocally rejected Maurrassisme and threw their weight behind de Gaulle.
Like General de Gaulle, Jacques Maritain believed that totalitarianism was inherently anti-Christian because it violated human dignity. He maintained that the Catholic faith should serve as a spiritual anchor for the citizen, never an ideological weapon for the state.
Maritain also justified the French Resistance on Thomistic Christian principles to counter Vichy propaganda, which tried to paint de Gaulle as a traitor to France’s Catholic roots, by arguing that true Christian morality demanded resistance to Nazi tyranny.
Most of all, there was Emmanuel Mounier, who explicitly designed Personalism as a Catholic alternative to both atheistic Communism and the fascism of the far right.
Somewhat similarly to Leclerc, the Catholic poet, dramatist and diplomat Paul Claudel and the Catholic writer Georges Bernanos, who wrote the manifesto against the Vichy collaborationist government, both actually began as right-wing Catholics before growing disgusted by Vichy’s antisemitic policies and its complete submission to Nazi Germany.
It is also worth noting that President de Gaulle’s post-war France, with its welfare state, socialised healthcare system, nationalised industries, comprehensive education, social housing and decolonisation, would be dismissed today as a socialist state by the contemporary neoliberal far right. Not least of all by the Musk-led American ‘conservative’ right, with its pro-corporate, big-business, anti-worker economics.
To my mind, this same type of post-war interventionist economic policy is exactly what is required again. President de Gaulle’s brand of dirigiste Gaullism of the Left is needed today to resolve many of our own economic problems, the cost-of-living crisis and ongoing austerity.
Even Pope Leo XIV has disavowed the use of Christianity by far-right political groups in Europe, stating: "The values of the Gospel are not about hatred and division, but about understanding and compassion."
Finally, if there are any people in the world who should draw inspiration from Gaullism today, then it is us Scots, whom General de Gaulle loved and admired.
Especially those of us here in Greenock, on the West Coast of Scotland, where our Free French Memorial proudly stands, honouring the memory of the Free French Navy, based here during the war.
General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, Admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu and General Charles de Gaulle himself all came here to Greenock during the war. Back in 2013, on Remembrance Sunday, it was deeply moving to watch the French Admiral awarding the Légion d’honneur to the last of our Scottish veterans at the Free French Memorial in Greenock.
Each year, I still go there to the Cross of Lorraine, as I have always done: that symbol of St Joan of Arc, chosen by the Free French as a sign of Christian resistance against the pagan swastika.
I have been told that the area inside the little gate surrounding the Cross is considered French soil and that, in previous years, the first wreath laid was always by civil representatives, rather than a Church minister or the Lord-Lieutenant representing the Crown, because France is a secular republic.
So let us hope that we all remain wise enough to continue to see more Christianity in our democratic secular republics than in the right-wing fascist dictatorships being espoused by the likes of Pete Hegseth.
And let us remember that the answer to a distorted Christianity is not the abandonment of Christianity, nor is it the embrace of libertarianism.
It is a Christianity confident enough to confront fascism, bold enough to defend human dignity, and patriotic enough to understand that the nation exists for the common good of its people.
In other words: a modern Gaullism, not libertarianism.
