In 1958, on the brink of civil war and with the government having lasted less than two months, France asked General Charles de Gaulle to revise the constitution and rein in the disorderly parliament.
More than 60 years later, the rise of populist forces has reopened an older chapter in French history that was supposed to have ended with de Gaulle’s Fifth Republic: parliamentary turmoil.
Last Sunday’s general election left parliament more divided than it has been in the country’s post-war history, with no party or coalition winning enough seats to govern on its own and the far right emerging as a third force.
Efforts by left-wing forces at odds with President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist bloc to revive a long-buried tradition of compromise in parliament immediately sparked arguments.
“This is a crash test of the system. In French“It is no longer suited to deal with today’s political forces,” said Tristan Mendes France, grandson of Pierre Mendes France, who led the government for seven months in 1954-55.
The euro zone’s second-largest economy is questioning whether it can form a durable government, with a country beset by paralysis and political instability as Russia wages its war in Ukraine, with potentially far-reaching implications for the EU and NATO.
Macron, who cannot hold new parliamentary elections until June next year, has said he will use his constitutional prerogative to give the newly elected parliament some time before appointing a new prime minister. The president on Wednesday called on parties to “engage in a sincere and honest dialogue to build a solid majority” that excludes the far-right and far-left.
Serious divisions have resurfaced within the left-leaning New Popular Front, which became the largest party with 193 seats in the 577-seat parliament and was the first to claim the right to nominate the prime minister.
But after a week of talks, the NFP – an eclectic coalition of centre-left Socialists, Greens, Communists and anti-capitalist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left Unbowed France – has yet to agree on a name for the prime minister.
Even if an agreement is reached and Macron appoints his own candidate, other parties, including the conservative Republicans and Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rally National party, have already indicated they would hold a vote of no confidence in a government that includes LFI ministers.
There is also concern about defections from Mr Macron’s own Renaissance party, with some of its left-wing lawmakers saying they want to form their own parliamentary group.
Other centrist allies are pushing for a deal with the conservatives, who have so far been reluctant to cooperate after harshly criticizing the president during the election campaign.
Unlike Germany and the Nordic countries, which have long mastered the art of delicate coalition-building, France has lost the ability to compromise, says Marie-Anne Coende, a constitutional law professor. “In France, it’s becoming more confrontational, one force against another,” she said.
France’s historically rooted character will also quickly resurface, said Bertrand Mathieu, also a professor of constitutional law: “France is both a monarchy and a revolutionary country. There is not much room between revolution and monarchy.”
Instead, French party politics often revolves around winning the presidential election, with Macron’s second and final term ending in 2027.
“In France, everything revolves around the presidential election,” said Enrico Letta, a former Italian prime minister.
“Today they have to make an agreement that has nothing to do with the presidential elections, because the issue is how to run the country. They need politicians willing to compromise. But some of them, including Mélenchon, are already campaigning for 2027. This overlap is specific to France.”
France’s 1958 Constitution put an end to political instability by strengthening executive power and encouraging the emergence of a parliamentary majority serving a directly elected president. The constitution gives the government many tools to circumvent an uncooperative lower house.
Although Macron’s party lost its majority for the first time in 2022, he used Article 49.3 of the constitution to pass legislation without a parliamentary vote – as he did with pension reform last March – in the face of fierce opposition from lawmakers and widespread street protests.
Historian Nicolas Roussellier said France’s “transition from a parliamentary to a presidential republic” was unique in Europe. De Gaulle and others who had experienced the trauma of the Vichy government’s collaboration with the Nazi occupation were “obsessed with the ability to govern,” he said.
France’s presidential system empowers technocrats, Lesellier said. “The idea is that laws are written by the more intelligent civil servants in the ministries,” he said. As a result, he said, parliament has become more disengaged and more rebellious.
But France experienced a golden age of parliamentarism, and some of the country’s most important laws were written by lawmakers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Roussellier said.
One example is the 1905 Law on Separation of Church and State, which was drafted by the socialist member Aristide Briand, who went on to serve as prime minister 11 times, but with little government intervention.
Facing fierce opposition from Catholic royalists on the right and anti-clericalists on the left, he managed to secure majority support for a bill that still shapes secular rule in France to this day.
Pierre Mendès France, a well-respected French politician, also managed to secure parliamentary support to end the country’s first colonial war in Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) during his brief tenure as head of government in 1954.
But after Algeria began its war of independence in the late 1950s, the parliamentary system became dysfunctional, French society tore apart, and widespread civil unrest led de Gaulle to demand full emergency powers when asked to take over the government in 1958.
After decades of relative stability, the decline of mainstream parties and the rise of political extremism are now testing the generals’ mettle.
“The political landscape is shifting, moving away from traditional one-party majority polarization to division and a radicalization of political discourse,” said Ann Levard, a constitutional law professor.
She said France has a tendency to reflexively amend the constitution when faced with a political crisis, noting that there have been no less than 14 constitutional amendments to date.
“We’ve tried everything: monarchy, parliamentary systems, presidential systems. But changing the constitution won’t change the political reality.”
Tristan Mendes France is also pessimistic about the resilience of French institutions in the face of populism.
“The tragedy of this situation is that those who dare join a coalition government are labelled ‘traitors’. Extremists automatically benefit from this without incurring any political costs,” he said.
“The idea of compromise here is tantamount to betrayal.”
Additional reporting by Adrian Crasa
