French History to the Present
From World War II to the European Union

A Constituent Assembly was convened in 1946 to draft a constitution for a successor, established as the Fourth Republic that December.

Adolphe Thiers, the first president of the Third Republic, called republicanism in the 1870s "the form of government that divides France least".

France might have agreed about being a republic, but it never fully agreed with the Third Republic. France's longest lasting r�gime since before the 1789 revolution, the Third Republic was consigned to the history books, as unloved at the end as it had been when first created seventy years earlier. But, its longevity showed that it was capable of weathering many a storm.

The Fourth Republic existed in France between 1946 and 1958. It was in many ways a revival of the Third Republic, which had ruled before the Second World War.

France adopted the constitution of the Fourth Republic on October 13, 1946.

Some attempts were made to strengthen the executive to prevent the unstable situation that had existed before the war, but the instability remained and the Fourth Republic saw frequent changes in government.

The ineffective government prosecuted the First Indochina War half-heartedly, with the United States' backing, until the defeat of Dien Bien Phu and the subsequent armistice.

The instability and ineffectiveness of the Fourth Republic came to a head in 1958 due to the Algerian War, which pitted Algerian colonists, the army and the far right against the left and those who wanted peace.

The Fifth Republic emerged from the ashes of the French Fourth Republic, replacing a weak and factional parliamentary government with a stronger, more centralized democracy.

Charles de Gaulle used the crisis in Algeria as an opportunity to create a new French government with a stronger office of President, which before was largely that of a figurehead.

French Presidents, as in preceding constitutions, were given a long term (7 years, now reduced to 5 years) and currently still have more internal power than most of their European counterparts in parliamentary democracies.

On September 28, 1958, a referendum took place and 79.2% of those who voted supported the new constitution.

The president was initially elected by an electoral college, but, in 1962, de Gaulle proposed that the president should be directly elected by the citizens in a referendum.

Although the method and intents of de Gaulle in that referendum were highly contested by most political groups, except for the Gaullists, the change was approved by the French electorate.

Given the run-off voting system used in the presidential election, the president of the Republic has a high legitimacy, since he has to obtain a majority at either the first or second round of elections.

De Gaulle was succeeded by Georges Pompidou (1969�1974), Val�ry Giscard d'Estaing (1974�1981), Fran�ois Mitterrand (1981�1995), and Jacques Chirac (since 1995).

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