Madame De Gaulle and the fate of her 2CV

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What? No Friday Lady? Well, yes and no. The car seen here belonged to a lady. And not just every lady. This humble Citroen, was in fact Madame De Gaulle’s personal means of transport during her husband’s reign. But as you can see it was written off. What’s more: the story behind the accident was kept in secrecy by the French ministry of defence until 2016, so you may never have heard it either (like we had never). So here we go.

Back in 1954, General De Gaulle was at home in Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, where he was working on his memoirs of WW2. But sitting behind his desk all day proved perhaps a bit too much of a dull excersize to the grand leader. And so, from time to time, he went out to discover the countryside. He usually took his private Traction Avant to do so.

But one day, it was a hot day in Spring, the car happened to be in the garage for servicing and so the General asked his wife Yvonne to prepare a picnic and place all of it in her private car: a 2CV. She did just that and the duo left without an escort, since De Gaulle apparently hated these. Madame De Gaulle was driving because the General was too tall with his legs constantly bumping the steering wheel.

They traveled some 30 kilometres before they stopped for lunch on a meadow overlooking a village. Madame de Gaulle installed the tablecloth on the grass and just wanted to get out the basket full of delicacies, when she saw the 2CV moving slowly. She yelled her husband, who did not hesitate to run after it. But there was nothing to stop the Citroen from gaining speed and heading towards to village square anymore. It did exactly that until being stopped by a van on the square!

The van did not have a scratch, but the 2CV was damaged rather heavily. The van’s driver offered the General to bring him and his wife back home, which they gladly accept. An hour later the French secret services had taken the 2CV away and cleared all of the evidence of the accident. But… One Belgian tourist came by in between, taking this unique picture.

PS: it was 60 years ago today that De Gaulle made it to the top position in France's government. Vive la republique!

(Words editor, picture Monsieur van Visapri, through petits-observations-automobile.com)

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