Republics
1. The First Republic
[see Revolution] The Parisian insurrection of 10 August 1792 destroyed the Constitution of 1791, which had sought to establish a limited monarchy. The new parliament, the Convention, was elected by all French men over the age of 21 who had had a fixed domicile for one year and were not servants. On 21 September 1792 it abolished the monarchy and the following day proclaimed the Republic, with a constitution that had to be accepted by the will of the people. There were further constitutional changes, the biggest in practice being Bonaparte's seizure of power [see Napoleon, I]; the Republic came to an end in 1804 when he became emperor.
The First Republic was based on the rights of man [see Déclaration Des Droits Del'Homme] and the individual's right to vote, although these principles were rarely observed in the continuing crisis of the Revolution. Of a potential 7 million electors only some 700, 000 voted in the election to the Convention, and some 1, 800, 000 approved the Constitution of 1793.
2. The Second Republic
This was proclaimed on 25 February 1848, as King Louis-Philippe fled the country [see July Monarchy]; it lasted until Louis-Napoléon's coup d'état on 2 December 1851. Its most notable feature was the organization of elections to a constituent assembly on 23 April 1848 by universal manhood suffrage. Whereas under the July Monarchy only about a quarter of a million men had the right to vote, under this law nearly 10 million voted, making France the most democratic country in the world. However, public opinion showed itself to be hostile to the socialist and Utopian ideas of the leaders of the February Revolution; out of an Assembly of some 900 members, approximately 400 were monarchists and 400 moderate (as distinct from radical) republicans. When the government suspended the right to work and the Ateliers Nationaux, the workers raised the red flag and set up barricades, but were crushed by military forces under Cavaignac in the savage street-fighting of the ‘journées de juin’ (23-6 June); this is described in Flaubert's L' Éducation sentimentale.
The constitution that was subsequently elaborated provided for a president elected by manhood suffrage for a non-renewable period of four years; he could not command the army, dissolve parliament, veto legislation, or abrogate the constitution. On 10 December 1848 Louis-Napoléon was elected president by a large majority (Lamartine only gained a few thousand votes).
The electoral law voted in February-March 1849 saw the first great electoral law organizing voting by manhood suffrage; most of it was adopted by the Third Republic in 1875. But the elections of May 1849 saw radical successes, and rumours of socialist plots provided a pretext for those who wished to remove the poorest from the electoral roll. The complications that ensued placed the prince-president in a strong position, and after his coup d'état there was little resistance. A plebiscite of 20 December 1851 approved the dissolution of the Assemblée and the extension of the prince-president's authority. A second plebiscite on 21-2 November 1852 approved the establishment of the hereditary empire [see Second Empire].
3. The Third Republic
This had an inauspicious beginning. It was proclaimed by a small group of moderates on 4 September 1870, on the news of the French army's defeat [see Franco-Prussian War]. The elections of 8 February 1871 returned a majority of monarchists, and it was an anti-republican assembly which designated Adolphe Thiers president of the republic on 31 August 1871. Only in January 1875 was the constitution finalized, and then only by a majority of one.
Nevertheless, the Third Republic was to last. It survived the conflict between a monarchist president, MacMahon, and a republican assembly (1877), the attempts of General Boulanger to seize power (1877-9), many political crises, and the harrowing events of World War I. It became accepted that the president [see Presidents Of The Republic] was a conciliator and a symbol of republican unity, while real power lay with the Assemblée Nationale. Because there were many parties, there was ministerial instability; the average length of a government was six to nine months, but changes were often slight and the centralized administrative system stayed in place.
The fundamental problems of the Third Republic concerned relations between the Catholic Church and the state [see Anticlericalism], the acquisition of a colonial empire at a time when Germany seemed to represent the biggest danger to France [see Colonization], and the existence of extreme political parties: the Communist Party [see Socialism And Communism] and various fascist-type groups that flourished in the 1930s. It was a divided nation that was forced to meet the challenge of the 1939 war and the military defeat of 1940. Institutional weaknesses led to Marshal Pétain being called on to form a government; the Senate and the Chambre des Députés met as a National Assembly at Vichy, suspended the constitution, and voted full powers to Pétain [see Occupation And Resistance], thus effectively ending the Third Republic.
4. The Fourth Republic
This originated in a referendum called by General
The central feature of this constitution was the importance of the Chambre des Députés and of the political parties represented there. Election was by proportional representation, and no party ever gained an overall majority. The country was therefore governed by coalitions, which became increasingly complex because of the existence of a strong Communist Party (which became isolated as the Cold War developed), the development of a new Social Catholic party (Mouvement Républicain Populaire), and the creation of a Gaullist party (Rassemblement du Peuple Français) in 1947. After the election of the Socialist Vincent Auriol as president in January 1947, the first official government of the Fourth Republic was headed by Paul Ramadier. There followed 20 further governments, ending with that of de Gaulle as prime minister before the inauguration of the Fifth Republic with his election as president in January 1959.
The crisis of the Fourth Republic arose from a revolt in Algiers on 13 May 1958 [see Algerian War]. After 24 May, when parachutists from Algeria took over Corsica, there seemed a real danger of an invasion of the mainland and of civil war. On 27 May de Gaulle announced that he was forming a government; the National Assembly voted for the investiture of this government and gave it powers to prepare a new constitution, which was overwhelmingly approved by referendum on 28 September 1958.
5. The Fifth Republic
After the referendum of 28 September and the legislative elections of November, de Gaulle was elected president of the republic on 21 December by an electoral college of 80, 000 voters. The new constitution was, according to de Gaulle, both presidential and parliamentary. The president, elected for seven years, is head of the executive, presides over the Conseil des Ministres, and assures the proper working of the institutions and the continuity and independence of the state. He appoints the prime minister and the ministers, the latter being proposed by the prime minister. Parliament is elected for a five-year period, but can be dissolved by the president (elections cannot be held twice within 12 months). The president can have recourse to a referendum, and by Article 16 of the Constitution can assume full powers in an emergency.
It had been widely forecast that this constitution was tailor-made for de Gaulle and would not last. But his presidency outlived the Algerian crisis, and he was defeated only in a referendum, seeking to change the powers of the Senate, in 1969. Although not obliged to do so, he resigned. His successors, Georges Pompidou and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, had been associated with Gaullism and had thereby accepted the constitution. François Mitterrand, elected president in 1981, had been a consistent opponent of what he termed the ‘coup d'état permanent’; however, as he put it, the institutions of the Fifth Republic had not been made with him in mind, but they suited him well.
The biggest change in the 1958 constitution came in 1962, when a referendum endorsed de Gaulle's proposal that the president be elected by direct universal suffrage. Three further details should be noted: Article 16 has been invoked only once, in April 1961; the referendum was used five times by de Gaulle, once by Pompidou, not at all by Giscard d'Estaing, and twice by Mitterrand; the Assemblée has been dissolved by presidential decision only four times, by de Gaulle in 1962 and 1968, and by Mitterrand in 1981 and 1988 (for the latter, each time after he had won presidental elections).
The relationship between president and prime minister is a problem in the Fifth Republic. It has been the practice of presidents to dismiss prime ministers when it suited them. But in 1986 Mitterrand was faced with a parliamentary majority hostile to him and was forced to undergo the experience of ‘cohabitation’ with a prime minister who was his rival, Jacques Chirac. Again in 1993, when the elections gave a massive majority to the former Opposition, he was obliged to appoint Édouard Balladur as his prime minister. In general it has been assumed that the president has a decisive role in foreign policy and defence matters.
In the political field, the Fifth Republic has been marked by decolonization, the decline of the Communist Party, the rise of the extreme rightwing Front National, and France's full integration into the European Community. Socially and economically, it has seen a progressive modernization of France, and the decline of many traditional ways of life, such as agriculture and fishing.
— Douglas Johnson
