[1] He was the eldest, and last surviving, child of General Charles de Gaulle, the first president of the French Fifth Republic, and of his wife, Yvonne.

[2] De Gaulle was born in Paris on 28 December 1921 and was baptised on 8 June the following year in the Church of St Francis Xavier in the 7th Arrondissement.

On 25 August 1944, he participated in the liberation of Paris and was sent from the Montparnasse Station to carry the order to obtain the surrender of the Germans entrenched at the Palais Bourbon in the premises of the National Assembly.

Near the end of the 1960s, a "legitimist" Gaullist party led by Joseph Bozzi advocated Philippe de Gaulle as the only legitimate heir of Gaullism.

[1][7][8] After a private funeral at the St Louis Cathedral on 20 March 2024, President Emmanuel Macron led a national tribute at Les Invalides.

Yet, in the opinion of some Gaullists and companions, Philippe would have been deserving of the honour, given his immediate engagement in Free France and his service in the army for five years, often at the forefront.