- published: 02 Jul 2014
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EasyJet Airline Company Limited (styled as easyJet) is a British airline headquartered at London Luton Airport. It is the largest airline of the United Kingdom, measured by number of passengers carried, operating domestic and international scheduled services on over 500 routes between 118 European, North African, and West Asian airports. The parent company, EasyJet plc, is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: EZJ) and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. As of 30 September 2009 (2009 -09-30)[update], it employed 8,000 people, based throughout Europe but mainly in the UK.
EasyJet has seen rapid expansion since its establishment in 1995, having grown through a combination of acquisitions and base openings fuelled by consumer demand for low-cost air travel. The airline, along with subsidiary airline EasyJet Switzerland, now operates over 200 aircraft, mostly Airbus A319. It has 19 bases across Europe, the largest being Gatwick. In 2010, EasyJet carried 42.4 million passengers and is the second-largest low-cost carrier in Europe, behind Ryanair.
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (/ˈtʃɑrlz/ or /ˈʃɑrl dəˈɡɔːl/; French: [ʃaʁl də ɡol] ( listen); 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969.
A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions, which he considered would become central in modern warfare. During World War II, he earned the rank of brigadier general (retained throughout his life), leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Battle of France in May in Montcornet, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. De Gaulle was the most senior French military officer to reject the June 1940 armistice to Nazi Germany right from the outset.
He escaped to Britain and gave a famous radio address, broadcast by the BBC on 18 June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in Britain. As the war progressed de Gaulle gradually gained control of all French colonies except Indochina most of which had at first been controlled by the pro-German Vichy regime. Despite earning a reputation for being a difficult man to do business with, by the time of the Allied invasion of France in 1944 he was heading what amounted to a French government in exile, but although he insisted that France be treated as a great independent power by the other Allies, the Americans in particular remained deeply suspicious of his motives. De Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 because of political conflicts.