Politics & Power Quote by Charles de Gaulle

De Gaulle’s line lands like a polite coup: an argument for democratic gravity delivered by a man who repeatedly treated the French state as too fragile to be handled by its own routine operators. The phrasing matters. “Come to the conclusion” pretends to be modest, almost bureaucratic, as if this were merely the product of sober reflection. Then the blade turns: politics are “too serious” to be entrusted to “politicians,” a word he makes sound small, careerist, and unserious. The insult is structural, not personal. He’s not condemning individual bad actors so much as a political class whose incentives reward survival over strategy.

The subtext is wartime and postwar France: parliamentary churn, factional games, and a nation that had watched institutions buckle under existential pressure. De Gaulle’s own mythology - the solitary voice of legitimacy in 1940, the founder of the Fifth Republic in 1958 - depends on the claim that normal politics fails precisely when stakes are highest. By calling politics “serious,” he frames it as national destiny, not a professional sport. That elevates “the people,” the nation, or the state above party machinery, and it conveniently justifies exceptional leadership, executive authority, and direct appeals over the heads of legislatures.

That’s why the quote still prickles. It’s an argument for broader civic ownership of power, but also a warning label for technocratic and populist temptations alike: once you declare politics too important for politicians, you invite someone to appoint themselves the grown-up in the room. De Gaulle’s genius was to make that invitation sound like responsibility rather than ambition.