Constitutional History of France the Constitutional Monarchy Prof

Constitutional History of France: the Constitutional Monarchy Prof. Marco Olivetti, LUMSA, December 10 th, 2020

Systems of government in French history § § § Until 1789: Absolute Monarchy 1791 -92: Constitutional Monarchy 1792 -95: Republican dictatorship (I Republic) 1795 -99: Directorial system of government 1799 -1804: Napoleon’s consulate system 1804 -14: First Empire (Napoleon I) 1814 -30: Constitutional monarchy 1830 -48: (dualistic) Parliamentary government 1848 -51: Presidential government (II Republic) 1852 -70: Second Empire (Napoleon III) 1870 -1940: Parliamentary government (III Republic) 1940 -44: National government of fascist type (Vichy government) § 1946 -58: Rationalized parliamentary government (IV Republic) § 1958 - Semi-presidential republic (V Republic)

§ A “government for the defense of the republic” is formed on Sept. 4 th, 1870, once the emperor communicates that he is prisoner of the German army § A constituent Assembly is elected on February 8, 1871 on the base of universal male suffrage; it meets in the Great Theater of Bordeaux on Febr. 11 th because Paris § A monarchist majority, but divided in three wings: Legitimists (pro-Bourbon, 150), Orleanists (250), Bonapartists (30; less than 200 republicans (in a total of 650 effective MPs) § A moderate republican is elected Chief of the executive power, subordinated to the Assembly The birth of the Third Republic and responsible before him: Adolphe Thiers (February 17 th, 1871) § The law of August 31 st, 1871 gives to Thiers the title of “President of the Republic” § The Government crushes the Paris Commune § The Government signs the treaty of peace with Germany, accepting the loss of Alsace and Lorraine § Compromise between the Orleanist and the Bourbon monarchists seems to open the way to a Bourbon restoration but the uncompromising position of the pretendant on a divine-right monarchy does not permit this solution to prevail § Thiers is obliged to resign by the Assembly and the monarchist general Mac. Mahon is elected in his place (May 24 th, 1873) § Mac. Mahon is declared President with a fixed term of 7 years (law of Nov. 20 th, 1873)

§ In the hope to restore monarchy in a later moment, the moderate monarchists (“orleanists”) reach between 1873 and 1875 a compromise with the moderate republicans (so called «liberal compromise» ) on a constitution that would let the way open either to a parliamentary republic or to a parliamentary monarchy a) Irresponsibility of the head of State The birth of the Third Republic b) Ministerial responsibility c) A bicameral parliament d) The power of dissolution of the Lower House e) The legislative initiative and the suspensive veto of the executive power The alternative between a Monarch or an elected President with a fixed term is left open The compromise is written down in the two Constitutional laws of 1875, that would have become the Constitution of the Third Republic

§ The «Wallon amendment» : the word «republic» is used only to designate the head of State The president of the Republic is elected by the Senate and the Chamber meeting as a National Assembly it is approved with 353 votes against 352 on Jan 30 th , 1875 § A Senate the cornerstone of the monarchist’s constitutional The actual cornerstones of the compromise demands: a moderating power, with the role to protect the Constitution The Constituent Assembly refused a unelected Senate as a voice of the élites, and created a Senate of 300 members: a) 225 senators were to be elected on a local base with an individual term of 9 years but one third of the Senate had to be renovated every 3 years, with a prevailing weight of the small municipalities b) 75 were to be chosen for life by the Senate itself (with the exception of the first Senate, when these senators would have been elected by the Constituent Assembly) § A rigid Constitution but with a easy procedure for amendment, articulated in two phases: a declaration of each of the two Chambers and a vote of the National Assembly (Chamber and Senate meeting in joint session) with absolute majority

§ An incomplete constitution, with the base for organizing political life, but with many questions remaining open § A republic or a provisional step towards monarchical restoration? § A dualistic or a monistic parliamentary government? The constitutional laws of 1875 § A stable or unstable system of government? § Consolidation of the republican solution after the republican electoral victories in the elections of 1876 and 1877 The Constitutional law of August 14 th, 1884 closed the door to the monarchical restoration: «The republican system of government may not be object of a constitutional amendment proposal» § After the constitutional crisis of May 16°, 1877 the role of the President was strongly reduced and the power of dissolution was actually paralised § A stable republic (75 years: 1875 -1940) with government instability

§ Monism or dualism and the problem of the «last word» § The conflict with the right-wing (and monarchist) president Mac-Mahon and the republican majority of the National Assembly § On may 16 th, 1877 Mac Mahon dismissed the government supported by Parliamentary government under the Third Republic the majority of the National Assembly and appointed a government of fight (“gouvernement de combat”), and at the same time dissolved the National Assembly (with the approval of the Senate) calling new elections for October 1877 § The Republicans won the election for the National assembly and the President had the alternative between to submit to the will of the majority and to resign ( «se soumettre ou se demettre» ) § He had to submit (appointing a republican government) and i 1879 also to resign when he was requested to make some top military appointments that he could not accept § The new President, Jules Grévy, promised: «I will never fight against the national will expressed by its constitutional organs» the president ceases to be an independent power (so called «Constitution Grévy) § With the first renovation of 1/3 of the Senate in Jan. 1879 the monarchist majority is defeated also in the second Chamber

§ The constitution did not speak of the Government and of the Prime minister, but the executive power was exercised by this organ, not by the President, who became a purely representative Head of State ( «There are two useless organs: the prostate and the President of the Republic» said Clemenceau) § The Government was appointed on the base of the support he could Parliamentary government under the Third Republic obtain in the two Chambers § The Government was at the same time the leader and the agent of the parliamentary majority § Elections (with universal male suffrage and mixed electoral systems) were rarely able to produce a decisive result and even when they did (1924, 1934) the parliamentary majority did not survive for a long time § The party system was fragmented and there was never a single-party majority in the Chambers § Every controversial vote was a vote of confidence and it was relatively easy to defeat the Government in a parliamentary vote § Governments lasted less than one years (they were 100 in 75 years) but with the stability of the leading political class (ministers and prime ministers continued to be present in various governments)

§ During the third republic France was able to build the second-largest empire in the world and to be on the winning side in the first world war, recovering the status of world power § French culture and French political system became a model of republican government Successes and failures of the Third Republic § The French constitution was widely imitated by all republics established in Europe, specially after the I world war § In Europe it was this constitution that gave origin of a model of republic with parliamentary government and with a president as a monocratic head of State (similar to a King who reigns but does not govern) § Its governmental instability was widely criticized and it was seen as the contrary of the stable English parliamentary system § Yet the Constitution remained almost unchanged until the dramatic defeat at the beginning of the II World War (just three const. am. were passed)

§ The defeat produced two French governments: a) The Vichy government, who signed an armistice with Germany and substituted the III Republic constitution with a national government b) The De Gaulle led the Resistance movement who refused the armistice and decided to continue the fight § In face of the military defeat from the German army and of the invasion of The defeat and the constitutional law of 1940 the French territory, the government led by Paul Reynaud (sitting in Bordeaux, while Paris is under occupation) resigned, being contrary to an armistice with Germany § The head of State Lebrun appointed Marechal Phillippe Pétain (one of the symbols of the French victory in the I world war) as new Prime Minister, the last of the Third Republic § Pétain asks the armistice to Hitler (June 17 th , 1940): it is accepted on June 25 th – The Government is installed in Vichy § De Gaulle quit Bordeaux for London from where he created the Committee for Free France, vowing to continue the fight from abroad and through the Resistance movement § Pétain was convinced that democracy has failed and that the Constitution of the Third republic was responsible for the defeat and had to be changed

§ A constitutional Law adopted by the Chambers (with 569 votes against 80) on July 10°, 1940 It delegated the constituent power to the government, under the authority of General Phillippe Pétain, with the authorization to promulgate in one or more acts the Constitution of the French State. The law put three conditions: a) It was a personal delegation to Marechal Pétain b) It had to guarantee the rights of the Work of the Homeland of the Family (“travail, patrie, famille”) The Vichy government c) It had to be submitted to the Nation for ratification d) It had to be implemented by the Assemblies created by the new Constitution The Government promulgated many “constitutional acts”, but it was impossible for him to obtain neither the elaboration of a Constitution by a Constitutional Assembly nor a popular ratification, given the fact that the Country was under German military occupation (for two thirds of its territory until November 1942, for all the territory after that date, until the liberation in summer of 1944) The government of Vichy was actually a dictatorship of General Pétain (and after nov. 1942 the dictatorship was actually exercised by Pierre Laval) After the Liberation by the Anglo-American army (landed in Normandy on June 6 th, 1944, with the liberation of Paris on August 25 th, 1944) both Pétain and Laval were tried and condemned to the death penalty. Laval was executed.

§ The alternative: returning to the Third Republic or drafting a new Constitution? In case of a Constituent assembly, should it be limited or not? Which system of government? § On October 21 st, 1945, a Constituent assembly was elected and, at the same time, the people was asked to answer two questions in a referendum: A) Do you want the assembly elected today to be Constituent? 96 % of yes The Liberation and the drafting of a new constitution B) Do you approve the organization of the public powers regulated by the law published in this paper? 65 pf yes Therefore the Constituent Assembly was limited to a period of 7 months and the text adopted by it was to be submitted to referendum § The first Constituent Assembly (elected on Oct 21 st, 1945) and the system of mass parties: communists, socialists, Christian democrats (decline of the radical party, who had dominated the Third Republic) § Its Constitution Draft proposed a Single-Chamber Parliament. It was fought and defeated in the referendum of May 5 th, 1946 by the Christian Democrats and by De Gaulle (53 % of No and 47 % of Yes) § The second Constituent Assembly (elected on June 2 nd, 1946) adopted a new Draft Constitution § In the second referendum, on Oct. 13, 1946, the Draft was approved by 9 millions voters against 8 mn. It became the Constitution of Nov. 27 th, 1946 (IV Republic) § A weak political base, because of the opposition of the Gaullist movement § With the end of the tripartite government (socialists-Christian democrats-communists) in January 1947, after the expulsion of the communists, the political parties supporting the Constitution were further reduced for the combined opposition of Gaullists and Communists

§ Confirmation of Parliamentary government § Rationalization of the rules of parliamentary government in a double sense: a) Writing down the rules regulating the appointment and the dismissal of the prime minister and of the government b) Regulating the relation of «confidence» between Parliament and government • While immediately after the war three large parties dominated the party system The Fourth Republic (PCF, MRP, PSF), there was later a fragmentation of the party system Multiparty coalitions were always necessary and were divided and unstable • A stronger but still marginal role of the President • A weak Senate and an embryo of constitutional council • The result: governmental instability with 26 governments in 12 years • The political class of the fourth republic was able to adopt some strategic choices: decolonisation in Indochina, Morocco and Tunisia and European integration • Crisis of the democratic institutions on the Algerian question, after 1954, culminating in may 1958 in a military revolt against the Government, in face of the trend towards the recognition of Algerian independence

§ Already during the III Republic some proposals for constitutional change had been elaborated (specially after 1934), with the purpose to strengthen the Government or to introduce constitutional review of legislation § A small and irrelevant constitutional reform was approved in Proposals to reform the Constitution 1956 § De Gaulle was in favor of a constitution that would have made the government independent from parties in parliament and deriving its authority from a stronger President § Some Prime ministers of the Fourth Republic were in favor of a further rationalization of the parliamentary system of government § Some professors (Club Jean Moulin) proposed to introduce in France the direct election of the Prime Minister, in parallel with the election of Parliament

§ In 1954 a National Liberation Front was created in Algeria by members of the Arab population it demanded independence, to be reached through armed struggle § The political class of the IV republic regarded Algeria as a part of France’s metropolitan territory and not as a colony (1 million of Europeans lived there out of 8 million inhabitants) The Algerian crisis and the breakdown of the IV Republic § When the attitude of a part of the French politicians begins to change, a part of the military rebels against the government, with the purpose of defending up to the end the “French Algeria” (“l’Algérie française”) § De Gaulle was ambiguous on the Algerian question: he was a symbol of national pride and of democratic institutions § In the most dramatic moment, in face of military revolt, De Gaulle was asked to become Prime minister in May 1958 in order to stop the military revolt on the Algerian question and to find a political solution § De Gaulle – who had always opposed the system of government of the IV Republic – accepted at the condition of being delegated to draft a new Constitution § The Constitutional law of June 1 st, 1958 delegated the power to reform the constitution to the Government, just formed by De Gaulle and ratified by the National Assembly