On 13th November 1945, General Charles de Gaulle was elected head of the government of France by unanimous vote of all 555 deputies.

General de Gaulle had been the leader of the Free French movement in exile during World War II, and had been condemned to death by the Vichy regime led by Marshal Philippe Pétain in 1940.

De Gaulle had been effectively running the French government as Prime Minister since 1944, and head of the provisional government. The Provisional government was formed because the pre-war parties had been effectively discredited for one reason or another. This provisional status become the true government in 1945.

Image: By Office of War Information, Overseas Picture Division. [1] The image prefix (LC-USW3) at the Library of Congress image page matches that of pictures from the OWI collection (see prefix list here. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De_Gaulle-OWI.jpg)