France: Politics in the Fifth Republic Meelis Kitsing
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France: Politics in the Fifth Republic Meelis Kitsing [email protected] http://faculty.uml.edu/mkitsing/46.112/ Source: Palmer 2004 • The evolution of French democracy has been marked by far more conflict than that of the United Kingdom. In comparison with British political traditions of tolerance and compromise, French have been characterized by revolution and violence. Source: Palmer 2004 France in Historical Perspective • Authoritarianism and democracy – sometimes bordering on anarchy – are both part of French political tradition. Their reconciliation has been difficult but has also made the system interesting. France’s historical roots are usually traced to Charlemagne, King of Franks, in 800 A.D. whose empire first united Europe. Like in Britain, the evolution of the French state began with its feudal kings’ need to extract money from their subjects. Unlike in Britain, this led to authoritarianism and the establishment of a centralized bureaucracy that taxed “with ruthless efficiency.” The French kings received political support from the Roman Catholic Church and the landed aristocracy. The Church legitimized the monarchy by preaching the divine right of kings and the kings granted the Church complete control over French religious life. The aristocracy financed the monarchy and maintained order in the countryside. Source: Palmer 2004 France in Historical Perspective • Both the Church and the aristocracy provided the manpower for the ever expanding bureaucracy. Cardinal Richelieu (1624) who modernized the bureaucracy and “established the groundwork for a modern standing army” is the most illustrious. Over time big businessmen (haute bourgeoisie) replaced the aristocracy and used their wealth to buy hereditary titles. They did not, however, provide a counterweight to the crown or church. By 1789, the people were starving. King Louis XVI, however unwisely, convened the “Estates General,” an irregular parliamentary body, to attempt to raise new taxes to support his “faltering regime.” The Estates were: 1) First Estate – nobility with 330 deputies; 2) Second Estate – clergy with 326 deputies; and 3) Third Estate – commoners with 661 deputies. Each Estate had equal representation which meant the nobility and clergy outweighed the commoners. The commoners protested demanding “one-man-one vote,” the king refused and July 14, 1789 Paris was in revolt abruptly ending Louis XVI’s reign. Source: Palmer 2004 French political vocabulary used in text Haute bourgeoisie Wealthy merchants Estates General Irregular parliamentary body called by the king just before the French Revolution in 1789 Grandes Ecoles Elite professional schools that train the French bureaucracy and most of the country’s leaders Plebiscite Popular referendum Cohabitation A situation that exists when the president and prime minister represent different political parties Navette Informal negotiations between the two houses of parliament Enarques Graduates of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) France’s elite professional school that trains senior administrators Pantoflage A descriptive term for people who begin their careers in the civil service then jump to the private sector Petite bourgeoisie Small merchants, business people, artisans Neocorporatism An aspect of the French political system which allows pressure groups to voice their concerns at the beginning of the legislative process Solidarite etudiante Marxist student group (Student Solidarity) Independent democratique Socialist oriented student group (Independent Source: Palmer 2004democracy) Dirigisme Mild form of state capitalism France in Historical Perspective • The new National Assembly declared France a democracy. It issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a fundamental document on human liberty. The National Assembly, however, soon gave way to extremism and demands for vengeance for the centuries of oppression. Churches were sacked, aristocrats murdered, the monarchy destroyed. The then revolution “turned on itself” – murdering tens of thousands of French citizens before Robespierre and other leaders of the terror were themselves executed in 1794.This reign of terror created major political divisions in the French populace. The deepest was the split between the Church and the believers on one side and the radical anti-clericalists, or populist nationalists, of the revolution on the other. Many people distrusted both. But remnants of this polarization remain today in French political life. Source: Palmer 2004 General Napoleon Bonaparte I: The First Empire (1799-1815) • The 1789 Revolution established the following political principles: 1) that all citizens were equal before the law; 2) that power resided in the people and their elected representatives; and 3) that church and state were separate – each ruler within its own domain - and the roots of French secularism. Yet the revolutionaries did not question the concentration of power in a centralized state. The question was who would wield it. Napoleon’s seizure of power concluded ten years of a bloody revolution. It ended with his defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Domestically, Napoleon instituted two enduring political institutions: 1) the Napoleonic Code, a legal system used throughout much of the world today; and 2) a merit- based bureaucracy grounded in Grandes Ecoles, or elite colleges, to provide the state with cadres highly trained in the revolutionary principles of reason and logic. Source: Palmer 2004 The Second Republic and the Second Empire • For the next 200 years, French politics swung between republicanism and authoritarianism as the French battled out the basic forms of government amongst themselves. The main events are listed in Table 4.1, Palmer p. 130. The Revolution of 1848 led to the Second Republic which was founded on the principles of universal adult male suffrage. But within three years, its elected president Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I, asked the citizens to vote (plebiscite) to grant him dictatorial powers. The authority granted, he declared himself Emperor of France and the Second Empire began. Napoleon III retained a parliament, but kept all the power. The turbulence of the mid-1800s reflected the inequality gap engendered by France’s Industrial Revolution. Industrialists became rich while workers and peasants failed to benefit. Source: Palmer 2004 Source: Palmer 2004 Source: Palmer 2004 The Third Republic (1870-1940) • Napoleon III’s reign collapsed in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, a war he had started to try to keep the German states from unifying. The National Assembly deputies founded the Third Republic, but in 1871, Paris erupted in Marxist flames with rioters establishing the short-lived Paris Commune to rule in the people’s name. But the leaders of the Third Republic crushed the Commune. The Third Republic lasted seventy years. Throughout this period, French politics was divided into two major irreconcilable cleavages: 1) the right – dominated by monarchists, clerics, and Church supporters; and 2) the fragmented left – that included Communists, socialists, anarchists and other groups that projected themselves as the “heirs of the Revolution.” By the late 1930s, the right found much to “praise in Adolf Hitler’s policies” and the Communist left supported the Soviet Union. Governments were short- lived and unstable lasting on average eight months. The Third Republic last as long as it did in part because France’s professional bureaucracy ran the country while the politicians argued. Source: Palmer 2004 Fundamental Dualism of French Politics in Third Republic (1870-1940) Political Left Political Right Communists, Socialists Monarchists, Clerics and and Anarchists and other Supporters of the Roman diverse groups that Catholic Church claimed to be heirs to the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789 Source: Palmer 2004 German Occupation and Vichy, France • France’s 1940 military collapse deepened the society’s ideological divisions. German forces occupied Paris and regions next to the German border. The rest of France was ruled by the Vichy Government, a puppet regime based in the village of Vichy under the presidency of Marshal Philippe Petain, an aging WWI French military hero. The political right collaborated with the Nazis as did many French moderates including Francois Mitterrand, France’s first Socialist president from1981-1994. Abroad, the French resistance was led by General Charles de Gaulle, the nationalistic, “charismatic leader of the Free French forces in Britain.” Internally, the resistance included the Communist Party, the Catholic Church and the supporters of de Gaulle, or Gaullists. Each resistance group positioned itself to emerge on top after theSource: war. Palmer 2004 The Fourth Republic (1946-1958) • De Gaulle advocated a strong executive to rebuild the war- torn nation and retired from politics when his ideas were rejected. Instead, the French chose to “concentrate power in a popularly elected National Assembly with a symbolic president. The choice of a popular representation (PR) electoral system that mirrored the vote and the fragmentation of the French electorate ensured no one could govern. The Fourth Republic lasted 12 years. During that period, a Gaullist movement, the Rally of the French People (RPF) was launched. Its platform became that of the French right, but the Gaullists also drew support from the middle and working classes and particularly practicing Catholics. Even replacement of the PR system with single-member districts failed to stabilize