DeGaulle could afford to secede from NATO. He had American, German and UK armies between him and the Soviet Union.
But stratgecically he stabbed western civilisation in the back with that action.
I was the Soviet Order of Battle instructor in a US Army Long Range Reconnaissance Company tasked with defending the Fulda Gap against the Russkies.
They had a 10:1 tank advantage over NATO.
Our strategy in the event of war was for a fighting withdrawal into France where we had stockpiles of supplies and places where reinforcements could be flown in from the US and have their heavy weapons and equipment waiting.
By then Soviet supply lines would be extended and vulnerable to our Air Forces and other long range weapons systems with people like me calling the shots.
DeGaulle stuffed that utterly and he knew he was doing it.
He almost fatally weakened NATO.
The only option left was nuclear “equalizers”.
DeGaulle was a capricious, vainglorious and ineffectual French ankle-grabber when the Nazis invaded and he didn’t get any better in the postwar years.