TV REVIEW : ‘De Gaulle’: The Man and His Ego : Television: A 3-hour profile cuts to the heart of a tumultuous military and political career.

“Ideologies come and go, but nations remain.”

The remark flashes by during the event-filled three hours of “De Gaulle and France” (at 8 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28 and KPBS-TV Channel 15; 7 p.m. on KVCR-TV Channel 24), but it cuts to the heart of what guided Charles de Gaulle’s tumultuous military and political career. Indeed, De Gaulle’s ideology was nationalism, much to the grief of his European and Western neighbors. But his greatest faith, as this WGBH-LMK Images production describes, was in himself.

As a young man, he believed he would rise to some kind of greatness. As a soldier, he believed he could escape from German POW camps--and tried five times. As a tank commander, he lectured his superiors about tank warfare. As the Quixotic leader of French resistance to Hitler, he had faith that a “Free France” would prevail over the Nazi collaborators of Marshall Petain’s Vichy government. As French President, he believed that he could always rally popular support, particularly when crises played to his favor.

More than many charismatic leaders of the time, De Gaulle’s conviction was joined by a spectacular ego--an ego that seemed tempted with benevolent dictatorship. During the program’s second and finest hour on the gripping drama of the Algerian crisis, Jean-Paul Sartre is quoted as remarking that, rather than picking De Gaulle, “I would vote for God; he is more modest.”

Yet during these events, as well as in the desperate years after World War II when an absolute Gaullist rule might have occurred, De Gaulle kept the faith in parliamentary democracy.

Producers Sue Williams, Tom Weidlinger and Christina von Braun are often painstaking in their coverage of events but miss an overriding political reality imposed upon De Gaulle during his 11-year rule from 1958-1969. Though he did get his wish to expand presidential powers as a counter to the “chaos” of coalition party rule, De Gaulle also ruled by referendum, constantly campaigning on the road and TV for his reforms. (It’s why the film is steeped in TV clips of his constant speeches to the nation.)

Thus, events turned him into a surprising democrat. For American viewers, the complex Algerian events will come across like news, from how De Gaulle faced down right-wing conspirators to how close France came to civil war. De Gaulle’s decision for Algerian independence surely led to his support for other Third World liberation battles in the ‘60s.

And while these and other moves might have angered the United States and pleased the Left, it was his utter blindness to the “rock ‘n’ roll revolution” of May, 1968--still the ultimate political spectacle of the New Left and just sketched in here--that left De Gaulle irrelevant.

But the film’s compilation of stunning archival footage, from Nazi terror to students taking over Paris, makes De Gaulle’s era pulsate with new life. As always, TV loves a crisis--or two or three.