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1958–1969: Return to power

In the November 1958 election, Charles de Gaulle and his supporters (initially the Union pour la Nouvelle République-Union Démocratique du Travail, then the Union des Démocrates pour la Vème République, later still the Union des Démocrates pour la République, UDR) won a comfortable majority. On 21 December, he was elected President of France; he was inaugurated in January 1959. As head of state, he became ex officio the Co-Prince of Andorra.

De Gaulle oversaw tough economic measures to revitalise the country, including the issuing of a new franc. Less than a year after taking office, he was confronted with national tragedy, after the Malpasset Dam in Var collapsed in early December, killing over 400. Internationally, he rebuffed both the United States and the Soviet Union, pushing for an independent France with its own nuclear weapons and strongly encouraging a "Free Europe", believing that a confederation of all European nations would restore the past glories of the great European empires.

He set about building Franco-German cooperation as the cornerstone of the European Economic Community (EEC), paying a state visit to West Germany in September 1962, the first to Germany by a French head of state since Napoleon. In January 1963, West Germany and France signed a treaty of friendship, the Élysée Treaty. France also reduced its dollar reserves, trading them for gold from the United States, reducing American economic influence abroad.

On 23 November 1959, in a speech in Strasbourg, he announced his vision for Europe:

Oui, c'est l'Europe, depuis l'Atlantique jusqu'à l'Oural, c'est toute l'Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde.

Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the destiny of the world.

His expression, "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals", has often been cited throughout the history of European integration. His vision stood in contrast to the Atlanticism of the United States and Britain, preferring instead a Europe that would act as a third pole between the United States and the Soviet Union.As the last chief of government of the Fourth Republic, de Gaulle made sure that the Treaty of Rome creating the European Economic Community was fully implemented, and that the British project of Free Trade Area was rejected, to the extent that he was sometimes considered as a "Father of Europe".