President of France

The President of France, known officially as the President of the Republic (Prsident de la Rpublique in French), is
France's elected Head of State.

Four of France's five republics have had presidents as their heads of state, making the French presidency the oldest
presidency in Europe.
In each of the republics' constitutions the president's powers, functions and duties, and their relationships with French
governments differed.
The current President of the (sixth) Republic is Franois Hollande

Current constitutional attributions

The constitutional attributions of the president are defined in Title II of the Constitution of France.
Article 5
The President of the Republic shall see that the Constitution is observed. He shall ensure, by his arbitration, the
proper functioning of the public authorities and the continuity of the State.
He shall be the guarantor of national independence, territorial integrity and observance of treaties.
Article 8
The President of the Republic shall appoint the Prime Minister. He shall terminate the appointment of the Prime
Minister when the latter tenders the resignation of the Government.
On the proposal of the Prime Minister, he shall appoint the other members of the Government and terminate their
appointments.
Article 9
The President of the Republic shall preside over the Council of Ministers.
Article 10
The President of the Republic shall promulgate Acts of Parliament within fifteen days following the final adoption of an
Act and its transmission to the Government.
He may, before the expiry of this time limit, ask Parliament to reconsider the Act or sections of the Act.
Reconsideration shall not be refused.
Article 11
[the president may submit laws to the citizens in a referendum]
Article 12
The President of the Republic may, after consulting the Prime Minister and the Presidents of the assemblies, declare
the National Assembly dissolved.
A general election shall take place not less than twenty days and not more than forty days after the dissolution. The
National Assembly shall convene as of right on the second Thursday following its election.

Should it so convene outside the period prescribed for the ordinary session, a session shall be called by right for a
fifteen-day period. No further dissolution shall take place within a year following this election.
Article 13
The President of the Republic shall sign the ordinances and decrees deliberated upon in the Council of Ministers. He
shall make appointments to the civil and military posts of the State. [...]
Article 14
The President of the Republic shall accredit ambassadors and envoys extraordinary to foreign powers ; foreign
ambassadors and envoys extraordinary shall be accredited to him.
Article 15
The President of the Republic shall be commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He shall preside over the higher
national defence councils and committees.
Article 16
Where the institutions of the Republic, the independence of the Nation, the integrity of its territory or the fulfilment of
its international commitments are under serious and immediate threat, and where the proper functioning of the
constitutional public authorities is interrupted, the President of the Republic shall take the measures required by these
circumstances, after formally consulting the Prime Minister, the Presidents of the assemblies and the Constitutional
Council.
He shall inform the Nation of these measures in a message. The measures must stem from the desire to provide the
constitutional public authorities, in the shortest possible time, with the means to carry out their duties. The
Constitutional Council shall be consulted with regard to such measures.
Parliament shall convene as of right. The National Assembly shall not be dissolved during the exercise of the
emergency powers.
Article 16 has been used only once, by Charles de Gaulle during the Algerian War, from April 23 to au September 29,
1961.
Article 17 The President of the Republic has the right to grant pardon.
Article 18 The President of the Republic shall communicate with the two assemblies of Parliament by means of
messages, which he shall cause to be read and which shall not be the occasion for any debate. Outside sessions,
Parliament shall be convened especially for this purpose.
Since 1875, the President is prohibited from entering the houses of Parliament.
Article 19 Acts of the President of the Republic, other than those provided for under articles 8 (first paragraph), 11, 12,
16, 18, 54, 56 and 61, shall be countersigned by the Prime Minister and, where required, by the appropriate
ministers.

Succession

Upon the death or resignation of the President, the President of the Senate becomes interim president. Alain Poher
is the only man to have served this temporary position.

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.
Consequently 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 Elyse 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 seperate. 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.
Candidates for the Presidency must obtain 500 sponsoring signatures of
elected officials from at least 30 departments or overseas territories. The
post is directly 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.
The term is five years, a reduction from the previous seven years. A
President can seek a second term and normally secures it, but two President

of the Fifth Republic have failed a re-election bid: Valry Giscard d'Estaing
and Nicolas Sarkozy.
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 Franois Hollande, the self-syled 'Mr
Normal', who gained 51.63% of the vote. Hollande is the first socialist
President in France for 17 years and has 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 next Presidential election will be held in May 2017.

THE EXECUTIVE
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.
Following the election of the new President Franois Hollande in May 2012,
Jean-Marc Ayrault - who was previously leader of the Socialist group in
parliament - was appointed Prime Minister. However, following local elections
in March 2014 when the Socialists did very badly, a new Prime Minister was
appointed by Hollande: Manuel Valls, who has been likened to the British
politician Tony Blair. Interestingly, he was born in Spain and only acquired
French citizenship at the age of 17 - his father was Spanish and his mother
Swiss.
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 NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
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 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 National Assembly 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
exeutive to account.
The last Assembly elections were held in June 2012 when the Socialist
grouping won a comfortable victory over the Right-wing grouping, taking
331 seats to 229 (17 members are outside the two groups).
The next Assembly elections will be held in June 2017.
Link: French National Assembly click here
THE SENATE
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. Members 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.
In the last Senate elections in September 2014, the far-Right Front National
won representation - two seats - for the first time and the Left lost its
majority. The next Senate elections will be held in September 2017.
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
POLITICAL PARTIES
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 traditionally been characterised by two politically opposed
groupings but, in recent years, a third force has emerged so that elections
are now effectively a triangular contest.
The earlier bi-polar model consisted of two groups:

one Left-wing centred around the French Socialist Party with minor
partners such as Europe Ecology The Greens (EELV), the Left Party,
and the Radical Party of the Left

the other Right-wing and centred around what was the neo-Gaullist
Rally for the Republic (RPR), then its successor the Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP), and now - since 2015 - the renamed The
Republicans, with support from the New Centre.

The growing third movement is building on the support of the Right-wing,

anti-immigrant Front National (FN) which first made waves in the European
Parliament elections of 1984 when it won almost 11% of the votes. More
recently, it did particularly well in the local elections of March 2014, actually

topped the polls in the European elections of May 2014, and went on to win
the first round of the regional elections in December 2015 (with almost 28%
of the vote). The party is led by Marine Le Pen.
For the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, in June 2012 the
Socialist grouping held all three elected arms of government: the Presidency,
the National Assemby and the Senate. But this did not last long: in the
Senate elections of September 2014, the Left lost control of the upper
house.
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.
The French take their politics seriously and voter participation is very high (it
was 79.48% in the 2012 Presidential election).
THE JUDICIARY
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 the the Parliament.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
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:

about 36,000 communes, headed by a municipal council and a mayor,

grouped in

96 dpartements, headed by a conseil gnral (general council) and its

president, grouped in

13 rgions (recently reduced from 22), headed by a regional council

and its president.

Essentialy the system of local government has not been reformed since the
time of Napolon in the early 1800s, but in December 2015 there were
elections to 13 new super regions - down from the previous 22 regions - and
the new structure is estimated to save 15 billion Euros (over 12 billion).