1. Introduction. Presidents, Prime Ministers and Majorities in the French Fifth Republic. Making a Way into a Multidimensional Puzzle
2. Charles de Gaulle (1962-1965, 1965-1969). The Birth of the Modern French Monarchy, the Fifth Republic
3. Georges Pompidou (1969-1975). Continuity, Reform and A Rightist Turn
4. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1975-1981). The Revenge of the Liberal Centre-Right over Gaullism
5. François Mitterrand (1981-1988, 1988-1995). From the Socialist Revolution to the “Socialist Monarchy”
6. Jacques Chirac (1995-2002, 2002-2007). Social Gaullism, the Longest Cohabitation, and the Spectrum of the Far-Right
7. Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012). Voluntarism, Hyper-Presidency, and Contestation
8. François Hollande (2012-2017). From Normalization to Fratricide Cohabitation
9. Emmanuel Macron (2017-2022, 2022- ). Progressivism and Europeanism in the Era of Crises
10. Conclusions. The Future of the French semi-presidential system
Sergiu Mișcoiu is Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of European Studies, Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Pierre-Emmanuel Guigo is Associate Professor of History at the University Paris East Créteil, France.
“The current French institutional system is rather challenging to fathom properly from abroad. Presidential by some aspects, parliamentary by others, it is difficult to encompass. Furthermore, the chameleon Constitution of the Fifth Republic has gone through almost contradictory interpretations at times, from a nearly regal standpoint to three periods of “cohabitation” having the President stay recluse in his Elysée’s Palace as the British monarchs in Westminster. “Presidents, Prime Ministers and Majorities. The Complex Evolution of the French Fifth Republic” comes then opportunely to introduce the reader to this more than sixty years complexity. The book is driven by a strong group of scholars, historian and political scientists, including the eyes of a few non-French academics whose outside position helps usefully to give international readers audience a better understanding of this so-specific country’s political system.”
- Philippe J. Maarek, Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Political Studies of Fontainebleau, Paris-Est University, France
This book focuses on the power dynamics triangle between presidents, prime ministers and parliamentary majorities and the way it has evolved throughout the French Fifth Republic, the longest lasting semi-presidential regime.. What are the main regularities in the way the three institutions function and interact? What is the footprint of the presidents’, prime ministers’ and leading parliamentarians’ personalities on the dynamics of the institutional system and on the political evolution of the country during each presidential tenure? To what extent did their ideological and partisan affiliations affect the collaboration between these key political leaders and what were the wider consequences of the dynamics of the inter-institutional relations and the country’s overall stability and progress? And what are the main lessons learnt or to be learnt from the Fifth French Republic’s semi-presidential experience by other countries which shaped their institutional systems based on the French model?
Sergiu Mișcoiu is Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of European Studies, Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Pierre-Emmanuel Guigo is Associate Professor of History at the University Paris East Créteil, France.