Charles de Gaulle (1948-)

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Charles de Gaulle (b. September 25, 1948, Dijon) is a French politician. He is a grandson of General Charles de Gaulle, and served as a member of the European Parliament, from 1994 to 2004 (as a member of the Movement for France).

A lawyer in Paris since 1971, Charles de Gaulle was a regional counsellor of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais from 1986 to 1992, sieging at the time with the Union for French Democracy (UDF) right-of-center party. From 1989 to 1990, he was the mayor's first assistant in Rueil-Malmaison in the Hauts-de-Seine department. He was present on Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's electoral list during the 1989 European elections, and after resignations from UDF members who preceded him, he sieged in Strasbourg starting in 1993.

At the 1994 European elections, he was elected on Philippe de Villiers's Movement for France (MPF)'s electoral list. Starting in 1998, Charles de Gaulle got closer to Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front (FN). He refused to vote the suspension of Le Pen's parliamentary immunity in Strasbourg, joined the FN in 1999, and then presented himself at the 1999 European elections and the 2001 municipal elections in Paris on National Front lists. He was not reelected in the European Parliament in 2004.

He is said by most other family members especially his father Philippe de Gaulle (in several TV shows while promoting his book De Gaulle, mon père) to be "the shame of the family" all the more since he shares the name of his famous grandfather.