Portal:French politics

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French Politics

The Politics of France take place in a framework of a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of France is head of state and the Prime Minister of France head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Senate and National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.

France was ruled by successive right-wing administrations until 1981. Throughout the 1960s, left-wing parties fared rather badly in national elections. The successive governments generally applied the Gaullist program of national independence.

In May 1968, a series of worker strikes and student riots rocked France. These did not, however, result in an immediate change of government, with a right-wing administration being triumphantly reelected in the snap election of June 1968. However, in 1969 following his defeat in a referendum, de Gaulle resigned.

Flag of France

Georges Pompidou, de Gaulle's Prime Minister, took over, remaining President until his death in 1974. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing won the subsequent election, but was to be the only Fifth Republic President not to be reelected.

In 1981, François Mitterrand, a Socialist, was elected president, on a program of far-reaching reforms. After securing a majority in parliament through a snap election, his government ran a program of social and economic reforms.

Since then, the government alternated between a left-wing coalition (composed of the French Socialist Party, the French Communist Party and more recently Les Verts, the Greens) and a right-wing coalition (composed of Jacques Chirac's Rally for the Republic, later replaced by the Union for a Popular Movement, and the Union for French Democracy). These coalitions are relatively stable.

The 1980s and 1990s saw also the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front, a party which blames immigration, more particularly immigration from North African countries such as Algeria, for increased unemployment and crime. Problems in the banlieues – literally, "suburbs", can explain Jean-Marie Le Pen's relative success in the French presidential election, 2002.

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Charles de Gaulle, in his general's uniform

Gaullism (French: Gaullisme) is a French political ideology based on the thought and action of Charles de Gaulle.

The main doctrinal component of Gaullism is a desire for France's independence from foreign power, but there are also social and economic components in some forms of the philosophy. The main theme of de Gaulle's foreign policy was of national independence, with, as some practical consequences, some degree of opposition to international organizations such as NATO or the European Economic Community. The basic tenets were that France should not have to rely on any foreign country for its survival (thus the creation of the French nuclear deterrent) and that France should refuse subservience to any foreign power, be it the United States or the Soviet Union. One may also cite social conservatism, and economic dirigisme and volontarisme as parts of the Gaullist ideology, but these are not necessarily accepted by all who called themselves Gaullists. Gaullism is generally considered a right-wing ideology, but there have also been left-wing Gaullists, the differences between the two consisting of differing social and economic policies.

See also: Gaullist Party Gaullism

Featured Person [2]

Alain Juppé and Lionel Jospin on 3 June 1997.

Alain Marie Juppé (born 15 August 1945) is a French politician, who was Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997. In December 2004 Juppé was convicted of mishandling public funds; since then, his political career was suspended until he was re-elected mayor of Bordeaux in October 2006. He was most recently the French minister of State, as well as Energy, Ecology and Sustainable Development. He resigned in June 2007 after failing in his bid to be re-elected in the 2007 legislative elections but remains mayor of Bordeaux.