[update below]
Today is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Paris and one of Charles de Gaulle’s greatest public addresses (and he had many). What he recounted at the Hôtel de Ville on August 25th 1944—about Paris’s liberation from the Germans—was a borderline lie—he forgot to say anything about the Americans and their contribution—but who cares? He restored France’s honor, which is all that counts. A great speech. Watch the first 44 seconds—which all that most people have seen—here. Vive la France!
UPDATE: France 2’s monthly history émission “Secrets d’Histoire” last night (August 26th) was on “De Gaulle, le dernier des géants.” It was most interesting. The synopsis
Le général de Gaulle a profondément marqué l’Histoire française du siècle dernier. Saint-Cyrien discipliné, il devient militaire de carrière. Blessé à plusieurs reprises lors de la Grande Guerre, il est même déclaré mort le 7 mai 1916. Cette émission se penche sur les aspects méconnus de l’homme politique, comme par exemple sa passion des médias et de la mise en scène. Ses discours, souvent de véritables représentations, étaient particulièrement calculés. De Gaulle a bousculé tous les codes de la communication politique, tout en dominant la scène internationale, en Russie comme au Mexique, en plaçant toujours la France au premier plan.
One learns, among other things, that de Gaulle requested that the American troops participate in the liberation of Paris—which General Eisenhower hadn’t planned on—, as de Gaulle feared that if only the Free French did so Communist fighters in the Resistance would invest the city, claim credit for its liberation, and with the attendant political consequences. The documentary, which is 1 hour 45 minutes in length, may be watched here for one week (to September 2nd).
Arun with a View 
It is indeed a great speech; and it was, I think, necessary, if France was to take its ‘rightful place’, and avoid the dismemberment that Roosevelt for one wished for, to create the myth of the ‘true’ France, the ‘eternal’ France and to set in parentheses, for the moment, the other France, the France of Vichy, of the collaborators, and of complicity in the Holocaust. De Gaulle also had to create a myth strong enough to anchor his own legitimacy and to subsume and dominate the Communist counter-myth. He was undoubtedly, with Churchill and Roosevelt, one of the great leaders of the 20th Century.
The “who liberated Paris?” question became the subject of heated discussions in a forum where I used to go. The clash of different national narratives, nothing more. As a test, I asked four different real life French people, not historians but all academics, including one old enough to remember those days. Well, two said it was Leclerc and his 2ème DB, one Rol-Tanguy, another “the people of Paris”. I suppose should I ask the same question of US citizens, they would say it was Patton / Eisenhower. Oh well.