Today, 80 years ago, on November 13, 1945 (Calendar 9 October 1945), De Gaulle was elected President of France. On November 13, 1945, about 555 delegates unanimously announced him as President of the French Provisional Government one and a half years after De Gaulle led the Army to liberate Paris. The election was held four years after De Gaulle fled the defeated country and declared himself a leader of free France. The Weich government sentenced De Gaulle to death in 1940. The leader of the government, Beaumont, would be sentenced to death last year and later reduced to life imprisonment.