© Associated Newspapers Ltd.

Vicky’s cartoon, published in the New Statesman on 27 Dec 1958, shows the celebrated French statesman General Charles de Gaulle, former leader of the French Resistance, who as chair of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944–46), had overseen the re-establishment of democracy in France. More recently, he had come out of retirement, and, as President of the Council of Ministers, rewritten the French Constitution, founding the Fifth Republic, after approval by referendum; he was elected President of France in November 1958. Vicky depicts de Gaulle in battledress as Charlemagne – who as King of France during the Early Middle Ages, had united the majority of western and central Europe – being presented with a Phrygian cap, marked with a V (symbolic of freedom and the pursuit of liberty). The supplicant is Reginald Maulding, former paymaster-general, and chair of the European free-trade area negotiations to link Britain to the six founding member states of the EEC. Unable, however, to dispel French suspicion that Britain was a Trojan horse for American interests, the project was defeated by de Gaulle’s opposition.