De Gaulle approved of the European customs union and an economic and political cooperation of nation states. He thought that closer economic relations could eventually lead to some sort of European confederation, but he rejected the idea of Europe’s federal super state.

That means that, in today’s post-modern Europe, de Gaulle — voted by the French in 2005 as the “greatest Frenchman of all time” — could be considered a nationalist and a populist demagogue.