THE divide in French politics and society since the early 19th century, examined here over the past couple of weeks, remains as clear as ever.

However, these days its outward and visible signs are different from in the past.

Now there are potentially important consequences of the outworkings of the divide.

Whereas in earlier periods the divide only affected France, nowadays the results in French elections could affect the EU.

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After the existential trauma of World War II and the Nazi occupation, it took about 20 years for France to stabilise.

The fact that it did was almost entirely due to one man, Charles de Gaulle, who became president in January 1959.

France went through the painful process of losing its empire in the 1950s, being defeated by the Viet Minh in Vietnam, losing Cambodia, leaving Tunisia, and then beginning a long, bitter, losing war in Algeria.

The loss of Algeria, constitutionally a French region, which de Gaulle enforced in 1962, almost provoked civil war in France with a split in the army, and a secret army organisation (OAS) emerging which tried to assassinate de Gaulle. However, de Gaulle successfully held France together.

He seemed to embody the two sides of........

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