FRENCH POLITICAL SYSTEM
Although the Greeks might claim that democracy originates from the ancient city state of Athens, the French could plausibily argue that modern democracy emanates from the French Revolution of 1789 - although the course of democracy in France has hardly run smoothly since then.
Indeed, unlike the American political system [click here] and the British political system [click here] which essentially have existed in their current form for centuries, the French political system has evolved through five major constitutional models as follows:
The Fifth Republic came about following a political crisis over France's colonial war in Algeria, when Charles de Gaulle took power under a new constitution which gave the President new executive powers compared to the Fourth Republic, making the post uniquely powerful in European politics and indeed politically - if not militarily - more powerful than the American Presidency.
The current constitution can only be changed with the support of three-fifths (60%) of the Congress which is the body formed when both houses of parliament, the National Assembly and the Senate, meet at the Palace of Versailes to vote on proposed revisions to the constitution.
During the presidential election of 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy's manifesto proposed changes to modernise the institutions of the Fifth Republic. The Comité de réflexion et de proposition sur la modernisation et le rééquilibrage des institutions (literally : "A committee of reflection and proposal on the modernisation and the re-balancing of the institutions") presided over by Édouard Balladur, a former Prime Minister, was established in July 2007 and submitted its report to the President in October 2007. This resulted in a bill which was approved by both chambers of the legislature in 2008.
Controversially, the final approval was secured by only one vote more than the required three-fifths majority of votes cast. Jack Lang, who broke his party whip, voted for the changes. The President of the National Assembly, Bernard Accoyer, also voted for them which defied the tradition whereby the President of the Assembly abstains from voting. Without those two votes, the bill would not have passed.
The bill re-evaluated the role of the executive and strengthened the parliament's powers. The President was banned from exercising more than two consecutive periods in office. There was limitation of the exceptional power of the President after 30 and 60 days. However, some of the proposals were not ratified, such as the introduction of proportional representation for election of the National Assembly, the reform of representation in the Senate, and the ban on dual mandates.
Four of France's five Republics have had presidents as their heads of state, making the French presidency the oldest presidency in Europe still to exist in some form. However, in each of the Republics' constitutions, the President's powers, functions and duties - and his relation with French governments - have differed. Under the Third and Fourth Republic, which were parliamentary systems, the office of President of the Republic was a largely ceremonial and powerless one. The constitution of the current Fifth Republic greatly increased the President's powers and some have the described the current position as a constitutional monarch.
So the Presidency is easily the most powerful position in the French political system. Duties include heading the armed forces, appointment of the Prime Minister, power to dismiss the National Assembly, chairing the Council of Ministers (equivalent to the Cabinet in Britain), appointing the members of the highest appellate court and the Constitutional Court, chairing the Higher Council of the Judiciary, negotiating all foreign treaties, and the power to call referenda, but all domestic decisions must be approved by the Prime Minister. The President has a very limited form of suspensive veto: when presented with a law, he or she can request another reading of it by Parliament, but only once per law.
The official residence of the President is the Élysée Palace.
Since 1875, the President has been barred from appearing in person before the National Assembly or the Senate in order to ensure that the executive and the legislature are kept separate. However, in 2008, a constitutional amendment was carried which enables the President to convene the Congress of the French parliament in order to make a declaration. A debate may then follow his declaration, without his presence.
Following a referendum in 1962, the President is elected by universal suffrage. Candidates for the Presidency must obtain 500 sponsoring signatures of elected officials from at least 30 departments or overseas territories. These elected officials are the more than 40,000 MPs, MEPs, senators, regional councillors and mayors. The post is elected in a two-stage voting system. A candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote in the first round is elected. However, if no candidate receives 50%, there is a second round which is a run-off between the two candidates who secured the most votes in the first round. This is held two weeks later. All elections are held on a Sunday.
In practice, no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote in the first round and therefore a second round is always necessary. It is often said that the French vote with their heart in the first round and with their head in the second round.
Following a referendum in 2000, the term of office for the Presidency is five years, a reduction from the previous seven years. A President can seek a second term and normally secures it, but two Presidents of the Fifth Republic have failed a re-election bid - Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Nicolas Sarkozy - and one - François Hollande - did not even seek a second term.
In the French political system, the relationship between the President and the Prime Minister - the first- and second-highest authorities respectively - is critical. It is not always the case that these two individuals come from the same political party or part of the political spectrum and, when they are of different political persuasion (as was the case in 1986, 1993 and 1997), the two figures must practice a process of 'cohabitation'.
In May 2012, Nicolas Sarkozy, the incumbent President and candidate of the conservative UMP, was beaten in the second round of the Presidential election by the Socialist Party candidate François Hollande, the self-styled 'Mr Normal', who gained 51.63% of the vote. Hollande was the first socialist President in France for 17 years and had never previously held ministerial office. He soon became so unpopular in the polls that he acquired the new nickname of Monsieur Flanby - a reference to a wobbly French pudding.
The last but one presidential election was held on 23 April and 7 May 2017. In the first round, for the first time since the Second World War neither candidate of the two main political parties - the Socialist Party and what is now called The Republicans - won enough votes to go forward into the second round. Instead the candidates in the second round were Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! (On The Move) and Marine Le Pen of the National Front. Macron won the election, securing 66.1%% of the vote. When he took office on 14 May 2017 at the age of just 39, he was the youngest person to head the French state since Napoleon.
The last presidential election was held on 10 and 24 April 2022. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a runoff was held, in which Emmanuel Macron now of La République En Marche! (LREM) defeated Marine Le Pen now of National Rally and was re-elected as President. This time, however, the margin of victory was smaller: 58.55% to 41.45%.
The head of the government is the Prime Minister who is nominated by the majority party in the National Assembly and appointed by the President for an indefinite term. The Prime Minister recommends Ministers to the President, sets out Ministers' duties and responsibilities, and manages the daily affairs of government. He issues decrees and is responsible for national defence. The PM's office is in the Hôtel Matignon.
France’s centrist president Emmanuel Macron initially appointed a prime minister from the right: Édouard Philippe, then 46, the mayor of the Normandy port town Le Havre, from Les Républicains. However, after three years, in July 2020 Macron appointed a new Prime Minister: Jean Castex, a career civil servant from the centre-right. In May 2022, a third Prime Minister was appointed: Élisabeth Borne, the former Environment Minister and Labour Minister who served numerous Socialist Party ministers before joining Macron's government. In January 2024, a fourth Prime Minister was appointed: Gabriel Attal, formerly Education Minister, at 34 the youngest PM in modern history, and the first openly gay person to hold the post.
The Council of Ministers - typically consisting of around 15-16 individuals - is headed by the Prime Minister but chaired by the President. The total size of the ministerial team is typically 30-40. The members of the Council are called Ministers, while the junior ministers are known as Secretaries of State - the reverse of the nomenclature in the British political system.
It is customary for the President, in consultation with the Prime Minister, to select elected representatives from the National Assembly for ministerial posts, but this is not a set rule. For example, there has been Raymond Barre, Prime Minister (1976-81), who prior to that appointment was a university economics lecturer, while Thierry Breton, Minister for Economy, Finance and Industry (2005-07) was a business man.
The lower house in the French political system is the National Assembly. This has 577 seats representing single-member constituencies. The 2.5 million French people living abroad have the opportunity to vote in one of 11 constituencies grouping areas of the world together.
Members of the National Assembly are directly elected in a two-stage voting system. A candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote in the first round (provided at least 25% of the voters registered in that constituency turn out) is elected. However, if no candidate receives 50%, there is a second round which is a run-off between all those first round candidates who secured more than 12.5% of the votes in that first round. This is held one week later. All elections are held on a Sunday.
Members of the National Assembly serve five-year terms.
The last Assembly elections were held on 12 and 19 June 2022. The next elections will be in June 2027.
The powers of the National Assembly in the Fifth Republic are limited compared to the position under the Fourth Republic. The Assembly controls neither its sessions (dates and length are determined by law) not its agenda (in practice, this is determined by the government). Essentially the role is limited to budget and laws and the body tends to specialise in scrutinising day-to-day government business. In cases of disagreement with the Senate, the position of the National Assembly prevails. Critics have argued that the Assembly is weak in terms of setting its own agenda and holding the executive to account.
Most members of the Assembly sit in a parliamentary group and each such group must have at least 15 members. The benefits of being in a parliamentary group are that groups have access to top positions in the Assembly and speaking time in debates plus provision of public funding.
Link: French National Assembly click here
The upper house in the French political system is the Senate. This currently has a total of 348 seats (the number depends on population changes): 323 representing mainland France, 13 representing French overseas territories, and 12 representing French nationals abroad. Many French Senators are also high-level local officials.
Members of the Senate are indirectly elected by an electoral college of 88,000 made up of city councillors and local officials which provides a rural and therefore Right-wing bias to the process. Indeed, since the Fifth Republic was established in 1958, Right-wing parties have always held a majority in the Senate until the elections of September 2011 when the Left took control for the first time. In the Senate elections of September 2014, the far-Right Front National won representation - two seats - for the first time and the Left lost its majority.
Since 2004, members of the Senate serve a six-year term (a reduction from the previous nine years) and one-half of seats (previously one-third) come up for election every three years.
The next Senate elections will be held in September 2020.
As with the National Assembly, the role of the Senate under the Fifth republic is limited compared to the position under the Fourth Republic. The Senate tends to specialise in constitutional matters and foreign affairs including European integration (it has a 'listening post' in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union).
The Senate meets in the Luxembourg Palace.Link: French Senate click here
France is a multi-party political system which means that often no one party wins a majority of seats in the Assembly. Indeed the major parties themselves are often very fractional with shifting personal allegiances.
French politics has historically been characterised by two politically opposed groupings but, more recently, these traditional groupings have fallen away to be replaced by several new groupings, so that elections are now a much more complicated battlefield.
The earlier bi-polar model consisted of two groups:
A newer movement was called La République En Marche or La REM (The Republic On The Move) which was founded just over a year before the last but one Presidential and National Assembly elections by Emmanuel Macron who had never been elected to any office but was a finance minister in the Socialist Government. Macron won the presidential election in May 2017 and his new party won the National Assembly elections in June 2017. Macron managed to be re-elected president in May 2022 but his grouping, named Ensemble (Together), lost its overall majority in the National Assembly in June 2022.
The newest mass movement is led by far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon who did so well in the presidential election of May 2022 when he was the candidate of his party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed). For the National Assembly election in June 2022, he put together a new coalition called the New Ecologic and Social People's Union (NUPES) which brought together mainstream parties of the left- - his party and the Socialist Party - with Communists and Greens.
So, in the National Assembly elections of 12 and 19 June 2022, Macron's party Ensemble lost its majority in the legislature falling to 245 seats. The new far left grouping NUPES became the official opposition with 131 seats. The far right National Rally jumped to 89 seats. And the Les Répubicains - traditionally the dominant party of the Assembly - won just 64 seats.
The French take their politics seriously and voter participation can be very high (it was 79.48% in the 2012 Presidential election). However, voter participation varies significantly across elections with recently a substantial level of abstention. In the Assembly election of 2017, turnout was only 43%. In the latest election to the Assembly in June 2022, turnout was only a little higher at 46%.
In France, unlike most other democracies, the majority of national politicians are former civil servants (often high-ranking). Most Presidents, many Cabinet members and a very large number of parliament members graduated from the same prestigious school, the Ecole Nationale d'Administration.
France uses a civil legal system; that is, law arises primarily from written statutes; judges are not to make law, but merely to interpret it. The basic principles of the rule of law were laid down in the Napoleonic Code.
The highest appellate court in France is called the Cour de Cassation and the six chief judges are appointed by the President. Unlike the supreme courts in other countries (such as the USA), it does not have the power of judicial review.
The power of judicial review is vested in a separate Constitutional Court which is a unique creation of the Fifth Republic. The court consists of nine members: one appointment made by each of the President, the President of the Senate, and the President of the National Assembly every three years for a nine-year, non-renewable term. This contrasts with the US system where the President makes all appointments to the Supreme Court but then the appointments are for life.
All former Presidents of the Republic - known as "les sages" (the wise) - are de jure members of the Constitutional Court. Currently there are three of them, giving the court a membership of 12.
The Court meets infrequently, only upon referral of legislation by the President, the Prime Minister or at least 40 Deputies in the National Assembly.
Although there have been recent moves to decentralisation, France is still one of the most centralised major countries in Europe and the world. It is colloquially known as mille-feuille, after the puff pastry of many layers and lots of cream.
Administrative units with a local government in Metropolitan France (that is, the parts of France lying in Europe) consist of:
As with the elections to the presidency and the national legislature, local and regional elections are held on the two-round system. This was introduced in 1962 by Charles de Gaulle and has so far proved effective at keeping extremists from too much power: the French say you vote first with your heart, then your head.
Following his campaign promises, in May 2018 President Macron tabled a suite of proposals for political reform.
The headline proposals - which commanded a fair degree of support - were as follows:
The election of Emmanuel Macron to the Presidency and the success of his new party in the Assembly elections in 2017 totally transformed French politics. Macron's re-election as President but loss of a majority in the Assembly in 2022 represents another dramatic restructuring of the French political scene. We now have a centre-right President facing in the Assembly strong groupings of both the far Right and the far Left. Modern France has never faced such a political situation. A lot of negotiation is going to have to take place with considerable potential for policy gridlock.
ROGER DARLINGTON
Last modified on 9 January 2024
If you would like to comment on this essay e-mail me
For guides to the political systems of other nations click here