France emerged from the war demoralized, bankrupt and bomb-wrecked. The only possible provisional government in the circumstances was de Gaulle's Free French and the Conseil National de la Résistance, which meant a coalition of Left and Right. As an opening move to deal with the shambles, coal mines, air transport and Renault cars were nationalized. But a new constitution was required and elections , in which French women voted for the first time, resulted in a large Left majority in the new Constituent Assembly - which, however, soon fell to squabbling over the form of the new constitution. De Gaulle resigned in disgust. If he was hoping for a wave of popular sympathy, he didn't get it.

The constitution finally agreed on, with little enthusiasm in the country, was not much different from the discredited Third Republic. And the new Fourth Republic appropriately began its life with a series of short-lived coalitions. In the early days the foundations for welfare were laid, banks nationalized and trade union rights extended. With the exclusion of the Communists from the government in 1947, however, thanks to the Cold War and the carrot of American aid under the Marshall Plan, France found itself once more dominated by the Right.

If the post-Liberation desire for political reform was quickly frustrated, the spirit that inspired it did bear fruit in other spheres. From being a rather backward and largely agricultural economy prewar, France in the 1950s achieved enormous industrial modernization and expansion , its growth rate even rivalling that of West Germany at times. In foreign policy France opted to remain in the US fold, but at the same time took the initiative in promoting closer European integration , first through the European Coal and Steel Community and then, in 1957, through the creation of the European Economic Community.