In autumn 1958, soon after 82% of voters had backed a new constitution for arguably western Europe’s least governable country, Charles de Gaulle turned to his confidant, Alain Peyrefitte, and observed, with evident satisfaction, that he had successfully reconciled monarchy and republic.
But as France’s Fifth Republic nears its 65th anniversary later this year, there can have been few moments in its history when it has seemed more contested – and it is the constitution’s elevation of the nation’s president to the status, almost, of an elected monarch that appears most to blame.
“Down with the Fifth Republic!” has been one of the chants of the millions of demonstrators who, 13 times now, have taken to the streets, sometimes violently, in a rolling nationwide protest that has become about far more than Emmanuel Macron’s decision to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Uniquely in Europe, its critics argue, the constitution of France’s Fifth Republic empowers the executive at the expense of the legislature, and in effect places control of that executive in the hands of one man (thus far, it has always been a man): a supreme leader, of sorts.
The French president appoints the government’s ministers, and is chief of the armed forces. He dissolves parliament. He promulgates laws (or can temporarily veto them), and nominates certain members of the Constitutional Council, which determines whether new laws are actually legal.
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