“The Dynamics of Executive Approval in Fifth Republic France: a Preliminary Empirical Analysis”*

Home , French Fifth Republic, Yvan Colonna

“The Dynamics of Executive Approval in Fifth Republic France: A Preliminary Empirical Analysis”*

Richard S. Conley Assistant Professor Department of Political Science University of Florida 234 Anderson Hall P.O. Box 117325 Gainesville, FL 32611 (352) 392-0262 x 297 [email protected] http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rconley

Abstract

This article is the first to develop a theoretical framework for systematically testing the dynamics of aggregate, monthly presidential and prime ministerial approval in Fifth Republic France (1959-2003). The empirical model combines general economic trends, “rally effects” from presidential foreign policy/military actions, socio-cultural factors specific to French political life, including domestic strife and strikes, as well as the three experiences of cohabitation or “divided government,” to gauge changes in monthly public approval for the five French presidents spanning de Gaulle to Chirac and their prime ministers. The results of the time-series analysis suggest that many of the factors presumed to affect presidential approval in the U.S., notably the state of the economy, impact French presidents’ approval in a similar way. However, French presidents do not gain a significant short term boost from either foreign/military actions or from their annual Bastille Day interview. Instead, domestic strife, such as terrorist attacks in the homeland by international groups or regional independence movements (e.g., Corsica, Brittany), produce a more substantive short-term rally effect. National strikes, frequently provoked by governmental policies opposed by France’s formidable unions, drive down approval significantly in the short-term for both the president and the prime minister. Finally, caeteris paribus, both Mitterrand and Chirac won the public opinion duel vis-à-vis opposition prime ministers. The condition of cohabitation—when the opposition party or coalition of opposition parties controls the legislature—enabled Mitterrand and Chirac to reposition themselves for their respective reelection victories in 1988 and 2002.

* Author gratefully acknowledges grants provided by the Department of Political Science, University of Florida, and Dr. Gayle Zachmann, Director of the University of Florida Paris Research Center, for this research. The research was completed in Summer 2003 at the Université Aix-Marseille III (Aix-en-Provence, France) and Fall 2003 at the Centre américain de Sciences-Po and the University of Florida Paris Research Center in Paris, France.

Paper prepared for the Southern Political Science Association Conference, New Orleans, LA, January 7-10, 2004. Introduction

Despite constitutional and developmental similarities between Fifth Republic France and

the United States, little comparative analysis of presidential politics in the two countries exists.1

In both nations executive approval is a constant subject of interest in the press and among the

public. But do the dynamics of French presidents’ public approval approximate those for U.S.

presidents? And do the factors that affect French presidents’ approval similarly structure prime

ministers’ approval?

To date, these vital questions have not been systematically analyzed by French or Anglo-

American political scientists. The French political science literature, rooted in a tradition of

constitutional studies and public law rather than quantitative analysis, lends largely anecdotal

insight into individual presidents’ and prime ministers’ public approval trends. Moreover, the

major French survey organisations, and the annual publications they spawn, provide mostly

descriptive evidence to explain patterns—sometimes with the aid of current and former

government officials whose party leaders are the subject of the surveys under analysis.2

This article is the first to develop a framework for testing the dynamics of aggregate,

monthly presidential (and prime-ministerial) approval in Fifth Republic France (1959-2003).

The empirical model combines general economic trends, “rally around the flag effects, socio- cultural factors specific to French political life, and the three experiences of cohabitation or

“divided government,” to gauge monthly changes in executive approval for the five French

presidents spanning de Gaulle to Chirac, and their respective prime ministers.

The analysis permits an implicit comparison of the variables affecting French presidents’

public approval with their American counterparts. The results of the time-series analysis suggest

that many of the factors presumed to affect presidential approval in the U.S., notably the state of

the economy, impact French presidents’ approval in a similar way. However, French presidents

do not gain a significant, short-term boost from either foreign/military actions or from their

annual Bastille Day interview—an analogy to U.S. presidents’ State of the Union Address.

Instead, domestic strife, such as terrorist attacks in the homeland by international groups or

regional independence movements (e.g., Corsica, Brittany), produce a more substantive positive

rally effect. Negative events, such as national strikes and protests, frequently provoked by

governmental policies opposed by France’s formidable unions, drive down approval significantly

in the short-term—and also negatively impact evaluations of French prime ministers. Finally,

caeteris paribus, the approval ratings of both Mitterrand and Chirac benefited from the incidence

of opposition control of the legislature—as did, ironically, their prime ministers under

cohabitation. Yet the French condition of “divided government” apparently furnished greater

advantages for Mitterrand and Chirac in their respective reelection bids in 1988 and 2002

compared to their prime ministerial challengers.

This article unfolds in several stages. The first section provides an overview of the

French dual executive and the import of presidential “domination” of the prime minister in the

realm of public approval. The second section presents a comparative synopsis of French

presidents’ and prime ministers’ approval from January 1959-August 2003 and theories that

account for changes in public approval. The third section details the methodology for gauging

the dynamics of monthly public approval for French presidents and their prime ministers. The

fourth section discusses the results of the empirical analysis. The concluding section offers some

additional thoughts on the prospects for extending comparative analysis of the French and U.S.

presidencies.

I. The French Fifth Republic: Towards a Presidential Regime

The French Fifth Republic has often been referred to as “semi-presidential” or a “dyadic” given a double executive structure (Duverger 1959). In reality, however, the system has moved decisively in the direction of presidentialism, notwithstanding recent periods of divided partisan control of the presidency and the National Assembly (Ardant and Duhamel 1999). Presidents

have come to “dominate” prime ministers, creating an imbalance that has prompted some

scholars who take a “strict constructionist” view of the Fifth Republic constitution to call for a

reevaluation of institutional powers (Lascombe 2002). Regardless, norms and expectations in

the Fifth Republic have evolved in the direction of a presidency-centered, not parliamentary- centred, model of executive leadership that accentuates the centrality of public approval for presidents’ policy and electoral fortunes—particularly in recent periods when the president and

prime minister have been from opposing parties.

Constitutionally, French presidents in the Fifth Republic were supposed to act as “arbiters of republican institutions.” But Charles de Gaulle, the first president of the Fifth Republic, quickly dispelled notions that a parliamentary-centered regime would predominate. De Gaulle swiftly reverted to France’s long tradition of plebiscitarian tendencies. In 1962 he won a constitutionally-dubious referendum to replace a complex, territorially-based electoral college system with direct election of the president as a means of enhancing his—and future presidents’—claims to be the only representative of all the people (Ehrmann 1983, 7-11). He

solidified the presidency and the Palais Élysée, the president’s Paris headquarters, as the locus of

power and the institution to which the electorate looks for policy leadership. Unwittingly,

perhaps, de Gaulle also opened up a greater possibility for divided control of the presidency and

the legislature (see Duverger 1986).

De Gaulle also introduced another imbalance to the co-ordinate positions of the president

and the prime minister for their respective responsibilities. He established the precedent that the

president could “fire” prime ministers at will—as he did Michel Debré and Georges Pompidou,

despite any such formal-constitutional authority (the Fifth Republic Constitution maintains that

the president merely appoints the prime minister, but the latter’s confidence rests in the

parliamentary majority—not the president).3 In sum, de Gaulle effectively placed the prime

minister and the legislature in an inferior institutional position in the Fifth Republic’s

constitutional order—and the impact on the relationship between presidential and prime

ministerial approval has been palpable. As Parodi (1971) notes, presidents’ approval ratings

typically dominate their prime minister’s—and subsequent presidents have followed de Gaulle’s

exemplar to maintain the dynamic.

As fusibles4 or “fall guys” prime ministers serve at the president’s pleasure and are

expected to act as lightening rods to deflect public anger for unpopular policies away from the

Élysée. Valéry Giscard-d’Estaing (1974-81) required his prime ministers, Jacques Chirac and

Raymond Barre, to sign undated letters of resignation (Cole 1998, 77-78). And as the experiences of Pierre Mauroy and Édith Cresson under Mitterrand will be shown, when the prime minister loses public confidence presidents in the Fifth Republic have had few scruples about forcing their departure before their own popularity may be contaminated.

It is under the condition of outright split-party control of the presidency and the legislature in the last two decades that the meaning of the “double executive” in France has become most meaningful. Both Socialist President François Mitterrand and Gaullist President

Jacques Chirac endured divided government—cohabitation in French parlance—at some length.

During periods of cohabitation, the system has approximated dominance by the legislature envisaged by many of the framers of the Fifth Republic (see Andrews 1982, 25-33). The president has been placed in a much more inferior position in domestic affairs and has occasionally sustained challenges by prime ministers to preeminence in de Gaulle’s sacrosanct domaine réservé (reserved domain) of foreign affairs. Most importantly, the president’s traditional domination of public approval has been inverted in periods of divided government.

It is precisely because of the president’s weak institutional position under cohabitation that the public opinion rivalry between the president and the opposition prime minister has taken on added importance in the last two decades. Like their American counterparts, French presidents hold a privileged position in terms of media attention with which other political actors

find it difficult to compete. Presidents have recourse to “go public” (Kernell 1997) and build

grassroots support through strategically-timed use of the bully pulpit and selective criticism of

the opposition prime minister (Bigaut 1995). Media relations have become more important and

public approval figures more prominently in French presidents’ electoral and policy calculus (see

Kaid et al. 1991). In their public relations duel with opposition prime ministers, Presidents

Mitterrand (1986-88) and Chirac (1997-2002) used institutional prerogatives and their symbolic

position as head of state and rassembleur to overtake positive evaluations of prime ministers and

reposition themselves for reelection victories.

Cohabitation is just one of many factors that has influenced variations in executive

approval since the 1980s. The essential task ahead is to unravel the complex puzzle of approval

dynamics across time from multiple perspectives.

II. Executive Approval in the Fifth Republic: A Synopsis

The difficulties in assembling monthly data on executive approval in France are

significant. No single organisation, such as Gallup in the United States, has tracked approval and

publicly made available monthly data for the duration of the Fifth Republic. Historical data are

not readily available on the Internet and are scattered across scholarly volumes.

The time-series of approval ratings for this analysis was pieced together from several

sources.5 The Paris-based firm SOFRES provides monthly data on its Internet site from 1978 to

the present. SOFRES also provided data for the period 1974-77.6 Monthly data for Charles de

Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, and their prime ministers, were culled from Sondages: Revue

Française d’Opinion Publique published under the auspices of the Institut Français de l’Opinion

Publique (IFOP) between 1959-78, and from Les Français et de Gaulle, also published in

collaboration with IFOP.

[Figure 1]

Figure 1 presents executive approval data spanning all five presidents and seventeen prime ministers in the Fifth Republic. Several important distinctions are notable for the forty- four year period covered in the charts.

First, early presidents in the Fifth Republic maintained relatively stable public approval trends and finished their terms with a level of popularity nearly as high as when they took office.

De Gaulle and Pompidou began and ended their terms above 50 percent, despite some notable peaks and valleys for de Gaulle.

Second, greater volatility in the initial and final approval ratings for the subsequent three presidents—Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand, and Jacques Chirac—is clearly visible in Figure 1. Giscard narrowly prevailed over Mitterrand in the second round of the 1974 presidential election. Chirac’s candidacy and divisions on the right had left him in second place after the first round of voting. Giscard subsequently took office with the lowest approval rating of all presidents in the Fifth Republic, at just 44 percent, and did not recover by the end of his septennat. A precipitous decline in public approval for Mitterrand and Chirac in their first terms is also noteworthy. Both presidents began their terms well above 60 percent but fell below 40 percent within 18 to 24 months. Mitterrand and Chirac gradually recovered to position themselves for respective reelection victories in 1988 and 2002, though Mitterrand left office in

1995 the most unpopular president—below 40 percent—a record for presidents in the Fifth

Republic. Scandals surrounding financial dealings, the suicide of former Prime Minister Pierre

Bérégovoy, and revelations about his role in the Vichy government and that he had a “second family” contributed to this dubious distinction (see Thody 1998, 118-25).

Third, the data show that across the Fifth Republic prime ministerial ratings tend to track presidential approval in the aggregate. Per se, however, presidential approval does not offer much of an explanation for changes in prime ministers’ public confidence over time (r=.20).7 A more important tendency is that prime ministers appointed at the beginning of the president’s

7 first or second septennat appear to benefit from the president’s “honeymoon” period or état de grâce (Parodi 1997, 92-93).

Another trend is that until the mid-1980s, prime ministerial approval was “dominated” by the president’s ratings: The approval level of the president consistently outpaced the prime minister (Parodi 1971, 129-51). Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius broke the trend briefly from 1984-85 before the legislative elections of 1986 brought about the defeat of the Socialist government and the first cohabitation. Finally, it is only in the last two incidences of cohabitation—with centre-right Prime Minister Édouard Balladur (1993-95) and Socialist Prime

Minister Lionel Jospin (1997-2002)—that the prime minister’s approval consistently trumped the president’s ratings.

Which factors explain the relationship between presidential and prime ministerial approval? Periods of cohabitation notwithstanding, the president’s domination of the prime minister reflects the fundamental basis of Gaullist presidentialism. Elected by direct universal suffrage and able to change prime ministers at will, the president is the locus of decision-making and director of the contours of governmental priorities (Parodi 1997, 94).

If prime ministers appointed at the beginning of the president’s first or second septennat garner relatively higher levels of approval, it may be because they enjoy somewhat greater latitude compared to their successors. Presidents have typically dissolved the National Assembly following their electoral victories if legislative elections were not otherwise scheduled.

Presidents tend to appoint prime ministers from the bloc of deputies who were most supportive in the second round of legislative elections. The appointment of the prime minister in these circumstances constitutes a more or less “constrained choice” on the part of the president. Later appointments between legislative elections offer the president far greater discretion. Subsequent prime ministers are often viewed as the “men and women of the president” (Portelli 1997, 22-

23).

Periods of cohabitation may invert the president’s domination of the prime minister

because of the latter’s own electoral legitimacy. The first two cohabitations (1986, 1993)

occurred at regularly scheduled legislative elections. The third (1997) was the result of President

Chirac’s disastrous decision to dissolve the National Assembly prematurely without offering a

sufficient reason for his actions (Goldey 1998). All three legislative elections that produced an

opposition government were widely regarded as repudiations of the president and his

parliamentary majority. It is under these conditions that the prime minister, as head of the

parliamentary regime, appears to sustain a stronger electoral legitimacy than the president in the

court of public opinion, though this dynamic did not enable Prime Ministers Chirac, Balladur, or

Jospin to successfully challenge the incumbent president in their immediate electoral bids for the

Elysée following periods of cohabitation.8 Figure 1 alludes to a potential explanation. The data

show that the first and third cohabitations benefited not only the prime minister’s public approval

but also the president’s. A central puzzle is thus why prime ministerial and presidential approval

have tended to positively co-vary under cohabitation.

The French political science literature offers much anecdotal evidence to explain the

highs and lows of individual presidents’ and prime ministers’ popularity. Many studies

emphasize economic trends, domestic strife, and “rally effects” from international crises. Prime

ministers are believed to bear the brunt of negative evaluations of the economic context, though

presidents cannot escape responsibility for the broad contours of governmental policies (Fontaine

1994). Giscard and his prime ministers are thought to have been negatively affected by the

combined effects of rising unemployment and the energy crisis—crises respondents believed

would only worsen in the mid-1970s (Sondages 1976, 22-23). Similarly, Parodi (1988, 173-74) attributes Prime Minister Chirac’s short-term slide in public approval during the first cohabitation to civil discontent in education and a national strike by the French National

Railways in late 1986 and early 1987. In a like manner, the parallel erosion in support for

President Chirac and his first Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, from 1995-97 is believed to have

been provoked by negative evaluations of economic policies, scandals, and national strikes

(Portelli 1998). Only Prime Minister Édouard Balladur, widely hailed for his “low-key” and

non-conflictual leadership style during the second cohabitation, appears to have held relatively

higher public approval for much of his premiership despite an erosion in the national economy

(Dupoirier and Grunberg 1993).

Periods of international crisis or domestic terrorism are thought to yield rally effects, but

cursory evidence suggests they are rather ephemeral in the French context. Ralliements autour

du drapeau (“rally ’round the flag effects”) also do not appear to extend to prime ministers, who

are charged much more with domestic affairs. As chief of state, the president is the symbol of

French foreign policy and the guardian of republican institutions (see Zarka 1992, 242 -45).

François Mitterrand apparently benefited from a short-term rally effect during the Gulf War

crisis between late summer 1990 and early Spring 1991, though the phenomenon did not mitigate

Prime Minister Michel Rocard’s declining popularity for domestic policies (Duhamel 1992;

Lellouche 1991). Mitterrand’s subsequent decision to sack Rocard and hand Matignon to Édith

Cresson despite any domestic crisis, followed by Cresson’s willingness to include the French

Communist Party in her government and a series of policy missteps and civil strife, rapidly left

her the most unpopular prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic (Duhamel and Jaffré

1992).

These scattered hypotheses are comparable to well-established theories about changes in executive approval in the U.S., even if the American political science literature is far more rich

in the empirical modeling of public opinion trends. Econometric models have shown that the general state of the economy substantively affects approval levels. Presidents Ford, Carter, and particularly George H.W. Bush, are notable examples of presidents’ app roval ratings suffering rather dramatically from the poor state of the economy (Brace and Hinckley, 1993). The

economic context weighs significantly on American presidents’ reelection chances, and Lewis-

Beck and Rice (1992) have shown similar effects for French presidents. Moreover, it is a well- established fact that U.S. presidents receive a temporary boost during periods of military action abroad or international crisis. As Ragsdale (2000, 44) points out, however, short wars and military actions are most likely to produce positive effects while long, bloody conflicts like

Vietnam may have an inverse effect. Third, negative events, often out of the president’s control, can also reduce approval levels (Brace and Hickley, 1991). In the American context such nondiscretionary events may include domestic unrest, racial violence, and protests against wars like those suffered by Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam. Finally, presidential approval tends to suffer from a time/competence paradox. Decisions taken by presidents inevitably disappoint some, and their approval declines over the months. The president’s administrative effectiveness and competence, however, increase with time. Thus, as Thomas Cronin and Michael Genovese

(1998, 108) note, “The president’s power is usually at its zenith early in the terms, when knowledge is the lowest.”

The diffuse conjectures offered in the French literature on executive approval beg the question of which generalizable claims can be made across time about executive approval. The objective of the analysis that follows is to model the effects of economic conditions, rally effects, and negative domestic events on presidential and prime ministerial approval. The goal is to systematize the study of approval dynamics common across the Fifth Republic. The analysis makes implicit comparisons to U.S. presidents, taking into account socio-political differences in the French context.

III. Methodology

The empirical model for evaluating changes in French presidents’ approval replicates

variables frequently employed in the analysis of public opinion of U.S. presidents. The structure

of the equation is ordinary least squares (OLS) regression combining continuous and dummy

variables. The equation may be expressed as follows:

PP=a+ß1(Unemployment)+ß2(Time)+ß3(Rally)+ß4(Strife)+ß5(Strikes)+ß6(Bastille)+ ß7(President)+ß8(Cohabitation) + e Where:

PP is the president’s monthly approval rating;

Unemployment is the monthly unemployment rate, ranging from a low of 1.2% (February 1961) to a high of 12.07% (March 1994);

Time is the president’s month in office at the time of the monthly poll; the data range from 40 to 84 months;

Rally is a dummy variable for the month in which the president takes a military action or there is an international crisis;

Strife is a dummy variable for the month in which a domestic or international terrorist incident took place in metropolitan France or Départements d’Outre-Mer/Territoires d’Outre-Mer such as New Caledonia;

Strikes is a dummy variable for the month(s) in which a major national strike or protest took place;

Bastille is a dummy variable for the month of July in which presidents give their annual Bastille Day televised interview;

President is a dummy variable indicating individual presidents’ first term in office;

Cohabitation is a dummy variable for periods during which the opposition party of the president, or coalition of opposition parties, controls the National Assembly; e is the error term for the equation.

Unemployment. The theoretical reasons for including unemployment in the model are

straightforward. As this key indicator rises, presidential approval should decline. Since the mid-

1970s France has suffered a structural unemployment problem more grave than other members

of the European Union (EU). Beginning with the oil crisis and ensuing high inflation of the

1970s, unemployment nearly tripled under Giscard’s septennat from 2.7 percent at the beginning

of his term to 7.5 percent by May 1981. Unemployment reached double-digits under Mitterrand

in September 1986, despite early plans for nationalisations and the president’s about-face with

austerity measures by 1983 (Christofferson 1991). Since the mid-1980s unemployment hovered between 8.5 and just above 12 percent for most of Mitterrand’s second term and Chirac’s first term. The EU stability pact has arguably complicated French attempts to redress economic stagnation through fiscal policies (de Bossieu 2002, 6-12). Member countries in the Euro zone must maintain a budget deficit of less than 3.0% of gross domestic product (GDP)—which provoked a crisis between the Raffarin Government and the EU Council of Ministers in Fall

2003 when it was clear France would exceed that threshold for another consecutive year.

Monthly unemployment rates come from several sources. For the period 1959-1967, data are not readily available from the Ministry of Labor (Ministère du Travail) or standard governmental statistical compilations. The figures for this period were calculated by the author from raw data provided in the Statistiques du Travail et de la Sécurité Sociale, which was published monthly during that period by the Ministère des Affaires Sociales. The data are housed at the INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques) headquarters in the Parisian suburb of Malakoff. Data for 1968-2002 are from the Annuaire rétrospectif de la France, 1948-88 (1990) and from the INSEE web site.

Time in office. Measuring presidents’ time in office gauges the impact of decisions over

time and gauges relative “honeymoon” effects. In the American context, Kernell (1978)

contends that time only measures “time” and has dubious explanatory power. However,

presidential decisions taken over the course of their terms are widely thought to disappoint many

in the electorate and contribute to a decline in popularity even as the president’s policy

“competence” may increase.

The metric employed in the model is each president’s months in office for each term.

Before constitutional change by popular referendum in 2000 that reduced the president’s term to

5 years (quinqennat) effective with the 2002 election, presidents in the Fifth Republic served 7 years (septennat). The minimum value is 40, and the maximum value is 84. Not all presidents

13 have served out their full terms. De Gaulle resigned abruptly in April 1969, four years into his second term, the day after voters rejected his referendum on Senate reform in April 1969.

Georges Pompidou died in office in 1974, 5 years into his term.9

Rally effects. Rally effects comprise major international crises and presidential events, including autonomous troop deployments (except for the Gulf War). Foreign observers may be surprised by the number of independent French military actions abroad in the Fifth Republic.

French presidents have been particularly active in sending troops to former colonial interests in francophone Africa, including recent peacekeeping missions to the Côte d’Ivoire and the Congo.

Data for rally effects from 1959-1995 were culled from La Cinquième République 1958-1995:

L’Histoire au jour le jour, Le Monde Dossiers et Documents. Data for 1996-2002 were assembled using the searchable archives of the Paris daily Le Monde and annual Dossiers et

Documents published by Le Monde, which traces major events of the year For this period, events which received the attention of at least 3 articles were included.10 A complete list of the data is provided in Appendix 1.

Domestic strife. Domestic and international terrorism has been a much greater and continuing problem in France than in the U.S. The phenomenon began in the mid-1970s.

Attacks on metropolitan French soil have come not just from international terrorist organisations but also frequently from regional groups, most notably Corsican and Bretagne nationalists.

Perhaps the most stunning event in the last decade was the assassination of the Prefect Claude

Érignac in Corsica in 1998. In similar fashion to the coding for rally effects, data for international and domestic terrorist incidents were assembled from La Cinquième République

1958-1995: L’Histoire au jour le jour, Le Monde Dossiers et Documents and the Paris daily Le

Monde. Like international crises and military actions, domestic terrorism incidents are expected to have a short-term, positive effect on presidents’ monthly approval. The list of domestic strife incidents is furnished in Appendix 2.

Strikes. France has a long history of étatism which is beyond the scope of this article (see

Descamps 1972; Moriaux 1982). But it is clear that France’s formidable unions (syndicats) frequently view presidents’ and prime ministers’ attempts to reform state functions as fundamental attacks on acquis sociaux (entitlements) attained over time. The recurrent problem of national strikes, student demonstrations, and civil strife in the public sector reflects an ingrained suspicion of public officials that complicates governance (Safran 2003, 60-61;

Hoffman 1994). One central difficulty for presidents and prime ministers is that public

sympathy typically sides with the protestors, not the government—whether it is a question of the

student protests of May 1968 (Kravetz 1968) or the intermittents’ (theatre performers’) actions

that canceled cultural festivals around the country in Summer 2003. 11 Strikes and major

demonstrations should therefore have a significantly negative short-term impact on presidential

and prime ministerial approval.

Strike data were obtained from Annuare rétrospectif de la France, séries longues 1948-

1988 published by INSEE and from Lenormand Céline, Chronologie indicative de l’histoire du movement ouvrier français de la Révolution française à la fin des années 2000. These data include major strikes and demonstrations. A complete list of the strike events is provided in

Appendix 3.

Bastille Day Interview. The president’s annual, televised Bastille Day interview with

select national news reporters on 14 July is the closest analogy to American presidents’ State of

the Union Address. The occasion casts the president into the media spotlight and provides an opportunity for him to announce new proposals and take credit for accomplishments. It also furnishes a forum to criticize the opposition prime minister under conditions of cohabitation

(Elgie 2002, 306). American presidents usually receive a short-term “bounce” from their State of the Union Address. The Bastille Day interview is included to examine whether the same dynamic holds for French presidents.

First term presidents. As Figure 1 showed, not all presidents begin or end their terms

with equivalent levels of popularity. Some benefit from a larger état de grâce (honeymoon).

Caeteris paribus, the inclusion of dummy variables for presidents’ first term tests knowing

whether de Gaulle or Chirac, for example, is president accounts for variations in approval above and beyond economic, rally, and time-decay effects. Dummy variables offer a “stylized” or aggregate account of individual presidents’ approval compared to their cohorts.

Cohabitation. The French context of divided government epitomizes the battle for public opinion between the president and prime minister. As noted in Figure 1, prime ministers’ approval surpassed that of Mitterrand (1993-95) and Chirac (1997-2002) in the last two

incidences of cohabitation. Yet these presidents saw their approval increase compared to periods

of unified control. Dummy variables for periods of cohabitation are employed to gauge more

precisely the relative effect of a divided executive on presidential (and prime ministerial)

approval, controlling for other variables.

Prime Ministers’ Approval Analysis

The approval model for prime ministers in the Fifth Republic is identical to the presidential model with only a few exceptions. First, dummy variables for periods of cohabitation were dropped. Dummy variables for individual prime ministers capture not only cohabitation effects but other effects not measured by the continuous variables in the model that are particular to the tenure of several occupants of the Hôtel Matignon. Second, the prime

ministerial model was divided across two periods—the de Gaulle/Pompidou era and the Giscard-

Mitterrand-Chirac era—precisely to avoid colinearity problems in light of the large number of prime ministers in the Fifth Republic (17).

As the narrative takes up in greater detail below, the inclusion of dummy variables for individual prime ministers enables an evaluation of which leaders were far more or less popular than economic conditions, strike activity, or the time-decay function would suggest. In

particular, political scandal and prime ministers’ challenges to presidential status and authority

explain precipitous declines in public confidence for such prime ministers as Raymond Barre and

Édith Cresson, noted in Figure 1.

IV. Results

The results of the models for presidential and prime ministerial approval are shown in

Tables 1 and 3, respectively. 12 For both tables, Newey-West standard errors are reported to correct for a violation of assumptions in the regression analyses. For the presidential approval model the Durbin-Watson statistic of .58 and the Cook-Weisberg statistic of 1.96 (p < .16) following standard ordinary least squares (OLS) regression suggest evidence of autocorrelation of the residuals and moderate heteroskedascity. Visual inspection of the residuals plotted against the predicted values confirms the presence of autocorrelation. Similarly, for the prime ministerial approval model divided between the de Gaulle/Pompidou and

Giscard/Mitterrand/Chirac eras, the Durbin-Watson statistic is .30 and .49, respectively. The

Newey-West procedure assumes that the error structure of the models is heteroskedastic and possibly autocorrelated up to some lag. Standard errors are generated with a heteroskedasticity - consistent covariance matrix that corrects for the problem of under-estimating the standard errors

(see Davidson & McKinnon 1993, 552).

From Stability to Instability: Presidential Approval from de Gaulle to Chirac

The results in Table 1 confirm the majority of hypotheses of the study. The state of the economy drives down presidential approval rather significantly, and presidents do tend to lose public confidence over time. Similarly, major strikes and demonstrations carry a negative effect on presidential approval. Rally events from major presidential foreign policy events and military actions show a positive correlation to public approval, however, they do not reach statistical significance. Incidents of domestic strife, on the other hand, yield a short-term gain in public confidence. Finally, the analysis confirms that Mitterrand (1st term) and Chirac saw their public

17 approval increase under conditions of cohabitation, controlling for other factors. Let us now examine these findings in more detail.

[Table 1]

The constant in the model in Table 1 suggests that all things being equal, presidents in the

Fifth Republic can expect an initial approval rating in the mid-60s. The coefficients for individual presidents show that knowing whether de Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard, Mitterrand, or

Chirac held the presidency does not explain much of the variation in approval dynamics (though

Chirac was more unpopular than the rest at the beginning of his first term). Instead, economic conditions, as measured by unemployment, and have become major factors in the instability of public approval ratings for later presidents, compounded by negative public evaluations due to strikes.

Each increase of 1 percent in monthly unemployment yields a net loss of just under 1.2 percent in presidents’ public confidence. The effect is most pronounced for Giscard, Mitterrand, and Chirac. To highlight the importance of the economic context, Table 2 presents the “mean effects” of unemployment on monthly approval ratings across time by multiplying the coefficient by the maximum, minimum, and average values for the indicator. The data accentuate that during the immediate post-World War II economic boom, de Gaulle and Pompidou reaped the benefits in terms of public approval. With unemployment consistently under 3 percent from

1959-74, public confidence in the first two presidents of the Fifth Republic was barely affected.

This scenario contrasts mightily with Mitterrand and Chirac, in particular. Using the constant of 66 percent in Table 1 as a baseline measure and holding all other variables at 0, Table

2 indicates that on average, structural unemployment alone drove their ratings down to the mid-

50s. The average, net loss for Mitterrand was just above 11 percent and for Chirac slightly greater than 12 percent—double the effect for Giscard. Alas, negative evaluations of the

employment context have been a principal albatross around the necks of recent presidents of the

Fifth Republic.

[Table 2]

Presidents must also be wary of provoking major strikes and demonstrations with unpopular policies led by their prime ministers. Such events, often at the behest of public sector unions, yield a short-term decline of over 3 percent in the president’s approval. Of course, the coefficient reported in Table 1 is a “standardized” effect across time. Two presidents—Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac—were subject to the most fluctuation in public confidence owing to strikes and demonstrations.

Charles de Gaulle’s presidency was a period of substantive modernization of the French state and arguably significant progress in terms of social policy. But his two terms were also a time of intense social conflict. Of the 45 strikes and major demonstrations catalogued between

1959 and 2003, 19 (41%) took place during de Gaulle’s reign from 1959-1969—an average of one strike or major demonstration every five and one-half months. The most memorable set of strikes took place in May 1968. The student uprising in protest of crowded university settings subsequently sparked public sector unrest. Inexplicably, de Gaulle departed for Germany to meet with his confidant General Massu, leaving Prime Minister Pompidou to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the chaos (Thody 1998, 33-34). De Gaulle’s public approval fell by some

8 points over previous months. Indeed, the model helps explain some of the peaks and valleys in de Gaulle’s relationship with the public. Visual inspection of Figure 1 shows that general strikes in April 1961, May 1966, May 1967, and the miners’ strike of March 1963, were associated with decreases in public confidence from 2 to 5 percent for the enigmatic president, consistent with the “stylized” coefficient for strikes in the regression model.

Jacques Chirac ranks second in terms of the frequency of strikes from 1995 through mid-

2003. A total of ten events took place over these eight years for an average of one every ten

months. The most pivotal events occurred in 1995 and 1996—the beginning of Chirac’s

septennat—when strikes by transportation workers and truckers in protest of the Juppé

government’s proposed social security reforms paralyzed the nation. Once again, visual

inspection of Figure 1 underscores the validity of the generalized effect of strikes in the model

(Table 1). The advent of these strikes erased Chirac’s état de grâce, already in jeopardy with the

resumption of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, dropping public confidence between 2 and 4

percent in late 1995. By early 1996 Chirac’s turn toward budgetary austerity provoked negative

evaluations of his plans to combat unemployment among no less than 87 percent of survey

respondents (Portelli 1998, 15).

The effects of economic conditions and strike activity underscore that like their American

counterparts, French presidents in the Fifth Republic must “hit the ground running” (Pfiffner

1996) to maximize leverage during their honeymoon period while they benefit from a surfeit of

public confidence. If the general economic climate takes a heavy toll on approval ratings, time

in office also yields a significantly negative effect.13 For approximately every 6 months in office presidents lose a full percentage point in public confidence. Put another way, a president serving out his full septennat of 84 months can expect a net loss of about 14 points as the next election approaches. French political analysts often make reference to the president’s “100 days,” and for good reason. The difficult, ineluctable decisions presidents must make are bound to alienate some in the electorate and disappoint others. As in the American case, presidents’ resources are greatest when their competence level is arguably weakest, at the beginning of their terms. All told, the time-decay function, combined with difficult economic conditions since the

1970s, explains the greater propensity for the steeper valleys in presidential approval in the post -

Pompidou era.

Presidents cannot count on either symbolic television appearances or international crises and military actions to reverse the negative impact of economic conditions, strikes, or time-decay

effects. American presidents’ major televised addresses often lead to a short-term increase in

public support (see Edwards 2004, 38-39). For French presidents, their annual Bastille Day interview, however symbolic, does not yield a similar effect. Moreover, presidents in the Fifth

Republic do not benefit from events thought to produce a “rally ’round the flag” effect. The coefficient for rally events of just over 1 percent does not reach statistical significance.

Employing interaction terms for individual presidents and rally events does not change the outcome. The failure of such actions to boost public approval constrains presidents’ ability to rebound from negative evaluations of the economy and the impact of civil unrest.

Which factors explain why, across the history of the Fifth Republic, neither military actions, largely confined to the African continent, nor significant international crises bolster confidence in the president? Mitterrand’s support for the American-led coalition in the Gulf War of 1991 is a case in point about public ambivalence toward military actions. The fourth French president of the Fifth Republic was successful in mobilizing public support behind the

American-led coalition. His public approval increased from the upper 50s during the crisis in

Kuwait and peaked in Spring 1991 in the low-60s. Nevertheless, this “bounce” was effectively far less compared to President Bush and Prime Minister Major (Zarka 1992).

Analyses of opinion toward the Gulf War specifically suggest that a general contradiction specific to French political culture may explain the dynamic. On the one hand, Mitterrand masterfully employed the symbolism of his “chief of state” role through public outreach to

marshal unity behind the allied coalition (Duporier 1992, 126; 144). On the other hand, many

French simultaneously evidenced a strong desire to avoid participation in any war that might

entail potentially negative economic consequences (Lellouche 1991). A strong majority of

French expected major protests against the war at the outset of allied military actions. Moreover,

a majority of younger French (18-25) expressed solidarity or sympathy with the pacifist

movement, which has roots in France’s libertarian as well as Christian political traditions

(Dupoirier 1992; Winock 1991). The lesson of the Gulf War is that while presidents may be able

to effectively galvanize public support behind military actions, there remains a more profound,

underlying skepticism of such actions among the French compared to Americans that undercuts significant rally effects.

Domestic strife, however, does yield a moderate increase in public confidence in French presidents. Terrorism on French soil perpetrated by international- or domestic-based groups spurs a short-term gain of 2 percent in public confidence following such incidents. The effect is entirely consistent with the president’s status as the symbolic and constitutional guardian of republican institutions in the Fifth Republic. When the integrity of the nation has come under attack, the public has rallied around presidents’ calls for national unity and the redoubling of efforts to bring the architects of terrorist attacks to justice. During the numerous terrorist incidents in Paris the mid-1980s and civil unrest in New Caledonia Mitterrand actively sought to reassure French citizens. Similarly, the increase in terrorist activities by Corsican nationalists in the late 1990s prompted steadfast condemnations by Jacques Chirac, a return to the leitmotif of the “social fracture” in France, and a focus on law and order. Both Chirac and Interior Minister

Nicolas Sarkozy were widely hailed in the métropole for the ultimate arrest in summer 2003 of

Yvan Colonna, the suspected assassin of Corsican Prefect Claude Érignac five years earlier

(Gurrey 2003).

If the advent of the first cohabitation in the Fifth Republic raised concerns about a crisis of the regime, by the third cohabitation there was little question that the French electorate not only approved of a divided executive but believed the arrangement would function well

(Quermonne 1987). The data in Table 1 confirm that the first and third incidences of cohabitation boosted presidents’ public approval, controlling for economic conditions, strikes, and time-decay effects. During the first cohabitation from 1986-88 public confidence in

François Mitterrand increased by nearly 19 percent. Similarly, in the extended period of

cohabitation from 1997-2002 Jacques Chirac benefited from a net increase of nearly 13 percent,

compensating for the otherwise negative evaluations that had plagued his early first term (noted

by the individual dummy variable indicating a loss of a little more than 7 percent compared to

other presidents). Only the second cohabitation, with Édouard Balladur as prime minister, did

not reinforce public confidence in the president (discussed in the next section).

Mitterrand’s increase in public support during the first cohabitation stems from several

plausible sources. The president’s popularity had decreased substantially following his volte- face on economic policy and the austerity measures adopted beginning in 1983. His job approval reached a nadir during his first septennat in early 1984 (Figure 1). With his popularity effectively halved compared to 1981, Mitterrand’s côte de confiance was among the lowest for presidents up to that point—and had likely bottomed out among all but his most fervent supporters. Replacing the ever-more unpopular Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy with the young, technocratic Laurent Fabius did not immediately benefit Mitterrand’s own fortunes, though the appointment was strategic and aimed at repositioning the Socialist Party in the center of the electorate (Duhamel 1985). The payoff came with Fabius’ ouster and the introduction of proportional representation in the legislative elections of 1986, which brought about the first cohabitation. Mitterrand’s popularity immediately rebounded by some 10 points—a seeming contradiction of the unprecedented institutional arrangement. His popularity remained well above 50 percent, and occasionally peaked above 60 percent, for the rest of the first cohabitation

(Figure 1).

With the introduction of proportional representation Mitterrand and the Socialists sought to maximize their own partisan support and simultaneously set a trap for opposition Prime

Minister Chirac. Chirac was forced to manage a very narrow centre-right coalition and the proportional scheme enabled Jean-Marie Le Pen and Front national to capture 35 seats. Chirac and his majority coalition were plagued initially by questions about whether to work with Le

Pen, and later vexed by the frequently disruptive tactics by the feisty, extreme right leader.

Mitterrand refused to go along with the prime minister’s desire to expedite controversial legislation by ordonnance (which requires the president’s signature), forcing Chirac to submit major elements of his programme to the National Assembly through the standard legislative process. These projets de loi concerning privatizations and employment drew the intense opposition of the Left and created a forum in which Mitterrand had ample opportunity to critique the Prime Minister and his majority.

The net effect of the first cohabitation was a negative media focus on Chirac while

Mitterrand dutifully played the role of statesman on foreign and defense policy and selectively censured the government’s domestic policies (Bigaut 1995, 12). Persistent divisions on the

Right, and the rebound in public confidence in Mitterrand, facilitated the president’s reelection campaign. The first round of the 1988 election split the vote on the Right between Chirac

(19.95%) and Raymond Barre (16.5%), with Mitterrand culling 34 percent of the v ote. In the second round Mitterrand prevailed easily over Chirac with 54 percent of the suffrage.

Cohabitation did not work to Mitterrand’s advantage, however, in his second septennat.

Table 1 shows that divided government from 1993-95 had no substantive impact on Mitterrand’s approval. As Figure 1 showed, Prime Minister Édouard Balladur’s job approval —though it declined over time—consistently outpaced Mitterrand’s between 10 and 30 percent.

The second cohabitation accentuates the relative political legitimacy of the president and the prime minister under a transformed electoral context. As noted earlier, scandals certainly beleaguered public confidence in Mitterrand during his second term. And the economic downturn, an increase in unemployment, and internecine warfare in the Socialist camp scarcely aided the president’s standing (Jaffré 1994, 147). Yet the electoral circumstances of cohabitation cannot be underestimated in analysing Mitterrand’s foundering public approval. The legislative elections of 1993 constituted a far greater rejection of the president and his party compared to

1986. Whereas the Socialists had garnered 32 percent of the national vote in the first round in

1986, they marshaled only 19 percent in 1993—the worst showing since 1958. The decisive victory of the Right in 1993 prompted far greater support for the notion that Mitterrand should resign compared to the first cohabitation. And the new majority evidenced greater determination to push forward with its agenda. As Gérard Grunberg contends, “It is a politically weakened president who began the second cohabitation. The context of political forces was highly inauspicious. His only remaining powers were constitutional—no less, but no more. And

François Mitterrand suffered the consequences. He was, for a time, completely silent”

(Grunberg 1994, 42; my translation).

The third cohabitation from 1997-2002 is remarkable for the degree to which presidential and prime ministerial approval co-varied (Figure 1), even if Jospin led Chirac in terms of job approval up to several months before the April 2002 presidential contest. Aggregate-level data can only offer informed hypotheses about the basis for that co-variance, and why Chirac’s popularity rebounded from a nadir in 1997. Several common interpretations are noteworthy.

The electoral context of the third cohabitation was unique. The victory of the “plural left” (gauche plurielle) comprised of the Socialists, ecologists, and Communists was widely interpreted as a more of a personal rebuke of Chirac than of the Right more generally. Neither

Chirac’s Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) nor the centre-right Union pour la démocratie française (UDF) was institutionally devastated as the Socialists were in 1993. The two principal rightist parliamentary groups maintained 253 of the 577 seats in the National

Assembly. The defeat nevertheless routed Chirac’s capacity for party leadership of the RPR specifically and the conservative majority coalition with which he began his septennat in 1995 more generally, precipitating a multitude of schisms and internal struggles amongst rival factions in the legislature (Bell 2000, 238-40).

One explanation for Chirac’s recovery of greater public confidence over time is that the

very weakness of his institutional position under the longest cohabitation in the Fifth Republic

generated ample personal sympathy for him. Ironically, his loss of control over the RPR enabled

him to rise above petty, partisan conflict in a manner consistent with de Gaulle’s exemplar. Ever

the consummate grass-roots campaigner, Chirac won increasingly high marks for his personal

“warmth” and “energy” according to SOFRES surveys. He fell back to the symbolic role of the president’s head of state functions and only selectively criticized the government’s policies with

which he disagreed most (Elgie 2002, 305-09). Méchet (2002, 26-27) reports that by December

2001 53 percent of survey respondents considered Chirac “the president of all the French,” though only 43 percent had voted for him in 1995.

Finally, alternative—though not mutually exclusive—interpretations center on policy

accomplishments during cohabitation and the general public outlook. Chirac may have benefited

from positive evaluations of the Jospin government’s popular policies, the objectives of which he

sometimes saluted in the attempt to share credit (35 hour work week, universal health insurance).

Another interpretation hinges on analysts’ focus on the sensitivity between public evaluations of

political leaders in France and the “public mood” (see Dupoirier and Greenberg 1996, 198 -99).

One frequent explanation in the French public opinion literature is that Chirac’s “captive

popularity” was intimately linked to the psychological climate in France, which improved over

the course of the third cohabitation (Witkowski 2000). France’s victory in the World Cup soccer

match in 1998 is routinely cited as having had a profound impact in bolstering citizens’

confidence in the future, which coincided with a moderate upturn in the economy that

advantaged both Jospin and Chirac (Duhamel 1999, 76-77).

Still, it is critical not to overemphasize the effect of cohabitation on Chirac’s job

approval. By spring 2002 his rating was barely above 50 percent and unemployment remained in

double digits. Jospin’s poor campaign for the Élysée, and revelations of his Trotskyite past,

damaged his bid for the presidency and clearly aided Chirac. With only 19.9 percent of the vote

in the first round of the 2002 election, Chirac’s was the worst showing for an incumbent

president in the history of the Fifth Republic (see Ponceyri 2002).

Prime Ministerial Approval: The Fortunes of “Fusibles”

Table 3 presents the analysis of prime ministerial approval, divided between the de

Gaulle/Pompidou and Giscard/Mitterrand/Chirac eras. The analysis conveys that many of the

same factors that negatively affect presidential approval, particularly the economy, strikes, and

time in office, have also had a relatively greater impact on public confidence in prime ministers

in recent decades. In addition, the data suggest that prime ministers’ individual style and policy

stances account for the steeper peaks and valleys in job approval.

[Table 3]

Dividing the model by the earlier and latter eras of the Fifth Republic emphasizes two key dynamics. First, the lower constant in the de Gaull/Pompidou era of 32 percent and the lack of “individualized” effects confirms the extent of presidential “domination” of prime ministers for all but Chaban-Delmas in the early period of the Fifth Republic. By contrast, the higher constant of nearly 57 percent for the later period, combined with greater variation in the individualized effects of prime ministers, indicates a much greater basis for volatility in prime ministerial approval. Second, time-decay effects have a much more significant effect in the post-

Pompidou era. The coefficient for prime ministers’ time in office more than doubles across the two periods. Since the mid-1970s prime ministerial approval has declined more precipitously compared to the president. For prime ministers serving under Giscard, Mitterrand, and Chirac, the expected loss of a full percentage point in public confidence occurs in just under four months.

These data point to a certain “learning” on the part of the public vis-à-vis the dual executive in the Fifth Republic. The de Gaulle/Pompidou era may well have been critical in the

“sorting out” of roles and public evaluations of the Élysée and Matignon. The prime minister was purposefully endowed with extraordinary legislative tools to surmount party fragmentation, pass the annual budget, and expeditiously enact the government’s agenda. If the effect of time in office has doubled in the most recent era, the dynamic reflects an impatience with prime ministers. Using the immobilism of the Third and Fourth Republics as a basic point de repère

(reference point), the public seemingly has higher expectations of what the occupants at the

Hôtel Matignon should theoretically be able to accomplish in the National Assembly in a short period of time.

At the same time, the analysis in Table 3 clarifies that presidential and prime ministerial approval co-vary most in terms of the state of the economy. The public holds both the president and the prime minister jointly responsible for structural unemployment that has plagued France since the 1970s. In the post-Pompidou era each increase of 1 percent in the unemployment rate yields a full percentage drop in prime ministerial approval. The effect is only slightly lower than for presidents in shown Table 1 (-1.17). By contrast, in the de Gaulle/Pompidou era unemployment has an inverse and positive (if nominally substantive) effect on prime ministerial approval, recalling that monthly unemployment ranged from only 1 to 3 percent during the period.

Prime ministers also share blame with the president for national strikes and major demonstrations. The negative effect is nearly two points higher (4.80%) in the de

Gaulle/Pompidou era. The sheer number of strikes during de Gaulle’s first and (truncated) second term furnishes much of the partial explanation. Though de Gaulle is noted for giving his two longest-serving prime ministers, Debré and Pompidou, broad latitude in leading the National

Assembly (Institut Charles de Gaulle 1990) neither he nor his prime ministers could escape criticism for unpopular policies that provoked civil unrest.

Strikes and demonstrations remain a negative force for prime ministerial approval in the

post-Pompidou era. The negative impact is roughly equivalent to that for presidents—a 3 percent drop for months in which such events occur. The fortunes of Raymond Barre under

President Giscard and Alain Juppé under President Chirac are exemplary. Widely regarded as the “prime minister of unemployment” (Sondages 1976, 36), Barre suffered low points during his premiership that were hardly coincidental. They occurred at times of heightened public turmoil, including several major national strikes and violent confrontations in protest of the government’s economic agenda in Fall 1976 and Spring 1977. Similarly, Juppé’s unpopular attempts to reform the social security system led to nationwide public sector strikes as the economy foundered and unemployment rose (Portelli 1998). Table 3 shows no significant

“individualized” effect for Juppé precisely because the model predicts levels of public approval in the 30s, accounting for his time in office, an unemployment rate of greater than 10 percent, and protracted strikes in the Fall of 1996 and 1997.

Periods of cohabitation notwithstanding, one additional factor that explains the typical

“domination” of the president’s approval over the prime minister is that the latter reap no benefits from rally effects or incidents of domestic strife. Table 3 shows that both variables are pointed in a negative direction across eras and do not attain statistical significance. Consistent with the president’s head of state status, to the degree that any limited “rally around the flag” effects exist, it is around the Élysée—not Matignon—that the French public rallies. Prime ministers are hard pressed to take the public eye off of economic woes.

The only exception to presidential “dominance” of the prime minister in terms of job approval in the de Gaulle/Pompidou era is Jacques Chaban-Delmas. The individualized effect for Chaban of 18 percent is by far the greatest for prime ministers in the first 16 years of the Fifth

Republic. Chaban’s popularity tracked Pompidou’s very closely before plummeting in Summer

1972. Ironically, Chaban’s very popularity may have sown the seeds of his demise. His

announcement of plans for the government’s nouvelle société (new or “great” society) agenda

resonated with the public but was made without prior consultation with Pompidou, who felt

upstaged (Damamme 1992, 207-11). The precipitous decline in Chaban-Delmas’ public approval is a case-in-point about the impact of scandal on prime ministers’ fortunes—and presidents’ willingness to sack them if they feel negative effects will spill over to the Élysée.

The French newspaper the Le Canard Enchâiné, known for its capacity to ferret out the unseemly side of French politicians, revealed a series of financial improprieties by the former mayor of Bordeaux in Spring 1972. These revelations, and the castigation they provoked by the

Left—most notably by François Mitterrand—took a heavy toll on Chaban’s esteem in the court of public opinion. They also provided a convenient pretext for Pompidou to call for Chaban’s resignation and shore up Gaullists in the legislature through the appointment of former World

War II military commander Pierre Messmer (for details, see Chastenet and Chastenet 1991, 432-

41).

The “individualized” effects for prime ministers in the post-Pompidou era do not lend systematic evidence that presidents’ first appointments are any more popular than subsequent ones, when other factors are controlled. However, the coefficients do yield indirect evidence of the negative consequences of real or perceived prime ministerial challenges to presidential authority or popularity that often lead to their voluntary resignation or involuntary “sacking.”

Controlling for the state of the economy, strikes, and time-decay effects, Jacques Chirac’s approval during his first premiership under Giscard averaged 8 points below the norm.

Embittered relations, personal rivalry, and policy disagreements between Chirac and Giscard led the prime minister to challenge the president’s “liberalism” on numerous occasions, ultimately prompting Chirac’s resignation (before Giscard could fire him) and the formation of the RPR

(Bell 2000, 138-40). The data in Table 3 suggest that in the court of public opinion, the disputes between Matignon and the Élysée damaged esteem for Chirac more than Giscard.

Of the seven prime ministers who served under Mitterrand, Michel Rocard was appointed upon the president’s successful reelection in 1988 and was by far the most popular—though this popularity was the key to his downfall. The individualized effect of 14.6 percent suggests that

Rocard maintained a much greater level of popularity than prevailing economic conditions warranted. The prince des sondages (prince of opinion polls), as he was often referred to, walked a fine line between maintaining support on the Left and governing rather conservatively in light of the difficult legislative coalition he was charged with managing (Duhamel 1992).

Following the Gulf War, Mitterrand demanded Rocard’s resignation, despite any governmental crisis. Tensions between Mitterrand and Rocard were well-known (Colombani 1989), and

Mitterrand presumably sacked Rocard to hamper his chances at running for the presidency in

1995 (Thody 1998, 117).

Mitterrand’s decision to replace Rocard with Édith Cresson, the first female prime minister in the Fifth Republic, was as disastrous as it was historic. As the coefficient (-15.08%) in Table 3 shows, Cresson’s short-lived premiership (11 months) was, caeteris paribus, the most unpopular in the post-Pompidou era. Her willingness to include the Communists in the majority coalition proved a clumsy move that alienated many. Moreover, as Philip Thody (1998, 117) explains, she was known “mainly for her lack of tact in talking about other countries, describing the Japanese as having all the characteristics of ants, and opining that all Englishmen must be homosexuals because none of the men in London turned round to look at her as she walked along the street.”

The dummy variables for prime ministers serving under cohabitation confirm that

Édouard Balladur and Lionel Jospin enjoyed far greater popularity than the continuous variables alone in the model predict. Chirac’s conflictual relationship with Mitterrand under the first cohabitation, and the crisis surrounding ordonnances, robbed the former of a surplus of public confidence. By contrast, Prime Minister Balladur’s popularity remained higher than expected

despite a downturn in the economy and a hike in unemployment from the outset of his

premiership. His reassuring style, desire to avoid protracted conflict with the president, and level

of comfort in televised addresses are thought to have enhanced his position. But most

importantly, long before the elections of 1993, Balladur was widely presumed to be the leader

slated to take up residence at the rue de Varennes and lead the National Assembly. Balladur seemingly garnered a surfeit of public good will because a strong majority of French expected a victory for the Right well in advance of the elections and wanted him to take an active role in governing (Duhamel 1994; Grunberg 1994).

Although difficult to quantify through aggregate level data, a similar effect concerning positive expectations may explain Jospin’s exceedingly high popularity for much of the third cohabitation. Having been crushed at the polls in 1993 and having lost the presidency in 1995, the Socialists saw in Jospin an opportunity to prove they could govern effectively. Jospin’s early agenda was greeted with significant optimism across the political spectrum. His plans to combat unemployment and undertake reforms aimed at modernising the state, including legislation guaranteeing equality of the sexes, allowing civil unions, and undertaking judicial reforms, resonated with the public (Le Gall 2000, 38-39). The irony is that while Jospin succeeded in carefully managing the “plural left” coalition in the legislature, his early policy accomplishments left him without a sufficient platform on which to challenge President Chirac in 2002. Like

Balladur, Jospin was far less adept at cobbling together a national electoral coalition than managing legislative politics.

Finally, what is the fate of Jean-Pierre Rafarrin, the current prime minister? The model shows an individualized coefficient of nearly 7 percent through August 2003. Early evaluations of Raffarin were indeed largely positive. He began his premiership at 64 percent. The stylistic opposite of Chirac’s first prime minister Alain Juppé a decade earlier, Raffarin’s roots hail from

the rural Poitou-Charentes region and he is not an énarque.14 He is notable for his image as a

sincere leader with a strong connection with la France profonde or la France d’en bas—every day France. Yet, like Juppé, Raffarin has begun to suffer a similar fate. Following a brief honeymoon, the standard disillusionment with the prime minister set in and general pessimism about the state of the economy diminished public confidence in his leadership (Pierre-Brossolette

2003, 135-37). Moreover, by Fall 2003 his public appr oval dipped below 40 percent. The tumultuous strikes of the preceding summer in education, transportation, and by theatre performers, in addition to protests by tobacco vendors for a hike in cigarette prices in Fall 2003, have undoubtedly contributed to Raffarin’s declining popularity. Moreover, the prime minister’s steadfast support for reforming the medical insurance system and his critique of the Jospin government’s adoption of a 35 hour work week have placed him in the political crossfire.

As President Chirac’s popularity has declined proportionally with Raffarin’s, it is an open question whether the prime minister’s days are numbered. The relative strength of the Union pour un mouvement populaire (UMP, Chirac’s presidential party) in the regional elections slated for March 2004 may be the critical turning point as Chirac eyes the presidential and legislative elections in 2007 (Barbier and Mandonnet 2003, 86 -87). Looking back to the Juppé experience a decade earlier, the essential point is that Chirac’s attempts to “package” reforms through a radically different personality in Raffarin have clearly not resulted in a different outcome—for the state of the economy and civil turmoil have taken a significant toll on both the president and the prime minister just as they did in 1995/96.

Conclusions

The objective of this research has been to systematically identify the factors that explain variation in executive approval in Fifth Republic France. This analysis has demonstrated that

many of the same factors thought to affect U.S. presidents’ public approval also hold true in

France, with the exception of foreign policy rally events and annual televised addresses.

Additionally, socio-political factors unique to France, including strikes and major

demonstrations, as well as terrorism on French soil, weigh heavily on president’s approval

fortunes.

The analysis emphasizes the underlying causes for greater volatility in public confidence

in presidents and prime ministers in recent decades. Structural unemployment, and public sector

strikes provoked by presidents’ and/or prime ministers’ attempts to reform the French state and

social policy, have negatively affected public confidence in the dual executive in France,

reducing government’s margin to maneuver and complicating presidents’ reelection bids. These

factors have undoubtedly contributed to the greater frequency of cohabitation, which may

continue to occur despite constitutional reform in 2000. Ironically, two of the three cohabitations

were met with substantial public enthusiasm and arguably enabled both Mitterrand and Chirac to

rebound from low points of their respective septennats.

The results of this research point to many potentially rewarding avenues for future

scholarship. The possibilities for more explicit comparison of French and American presidents’ manipulation of public opinion in different historical eras through case studies seems appropriate. As revered military heros both de Gaulle and Eisenhower, for example, were largely successful in portraying themselves as “above the fray” of partisan politics and marshaling relatively consistent public support. How each president used his public standing to advance his agenda is of particular interest. In more recent decades, the frequent incidence of divided government in both systems, while complicating presidents’ agendas, has arguably opened up opportunities for presidents to recover public confidence in their leadership and re - position themselves for electoral victory. Comparing the economic and political context surrounding Bill Clinton’s high public approval during impeachment and Jacques Chirac’s rebound in the late 1990s merits closer attention.

Finally, with a focus on economic conditions and civil protest, this analysis points to plausible reasons why recent French presidents and prime ministers have suffered dramatic

losses in public confidence. Yet many French scholars also accentuate the relationship between

opinion of political leaders and the “public mood,” typically measured through an index of optimism and pessimism about the future (Dupoirier and Grunberg 1996, 198-99 Jaffré 1995).

Such data are not available across the totality of the Fifth Republic. But in a simple re-analysis of Jaffré’s monthly data for Mitterrand’s first term, public mood alone explains nearly half of the variance in presidential and prime ministerial approval. How presidents and prime ministers cope with swings in the public psychology and attempt to manipulate their own images is of paramount interest for future scholarship. Systematic analysis of panel data, not frequently performed by French political scientists, could be highly useful.

The comparative method is a powerful means to build and test theories of presidential politics. If French political science is not renowned for quantitative approaches, American scholars in the United States are equally not accredited for constructing comparative frameworks of executive politics. Fifth Republic France—despite its separated institutional structure—has unfortunately been overlooked by all but a few American scholars. Extending comparative executive research beyond Anglo systems with parliamentary arrangements to systems such as

France with stronger analogies to the American institutional structure is a next logical step in scholarship on the U.S. presidency, from public opinion to legislative leadership and institutional behavior.

Figure 1 Presidential and Prime Ministerial Approval in Fifth Republic France, 1959-2003

de Gaulle, 1959-69

80 70

40 30 Percent Approval Debre Pompidou 20

10 Couve de Murville 0

Jun-59 Jun-60 Jun-61 Jun-62 Jun-63 Jun-64 Jun-65 Jun-66 Jun-67 Jun-68 Dec-58 Dec-59 Dec-60 Dec-61 Dec-62 Dec-63 Dec-64 Dec-65 Dec-66 Dec-67 Dec-68 President Prime Minister

Pompidou, 1969-74

80 70

40 30

Percent Approval Messmer 20 10 Chaban-Delmas

Jun-69 Jun-70 Jun-71 Jun-72 Jun-73 Feb-70 Feb-71 Feb-72 Feb-73 Feb-74 Oc t-69 Oc t-70 Oc t-71 Oc t-72 Oc t-73 Aug-69 Dec-69 Apr-70 Aug-70 Dec-70 Apr-71 Aug-71 Dec-71 Apr-72 Aug-72 Dec-72 Apr-73 Aug-73 Dec-73 President Prime Minister

Giscard, 1974-81

30 Chirac Percent Approval 20 Barre 10

0 Jun-74 Jun-75 Jun-76 Jun-77 Jun-78 Jun-79 Jun-80 Sep-74 Sep-75 Sep-76 Sep-77 Sep-78 Sep-79 Sep-80 Dec-74 Dec-75 Dec-76 Dec-77 Dec-78 Dec-79 Dec-80 Mar-75 Mar-76 Mar-77 Mar-78 Mar-79 Mar-80 Mar-81

President Prime Minister

Figure 1 (continued)

Mitterrand, 1981-95

Balladur 80 (cohabitation) 70

60 50 Rocard 40 Chirac 30 Mauroy Fabius (cohabitation) Percent Approval 20 Cresson Beregovoy 10 0

Jun-81 Jun-82 Jun-83 Jun-84 Jun-85 Jun-86 Jun-87 Jun-88 Jun-89 Jun-90 Jun-91 Jun-92 Jun-93 Jun-94 Dec-81 Dec-82 Dec-83 Dec-84 Dec-85 Dec-86 Dec-87 Dec-88 Dec-89 Dec-90 Dec-91 Dec-92 Dec-93 Dec-94 President Prime Minister

Chirac, 1995-2003

Jospin 80 (cohabitation) Raffarin 70

30 Percent Approval 20 Juppe 10

0 Jun-95 Jun-96 Jun-97 Jun-98 Jun-99 Jun-00 Jun-01 Jun-02 Jun-03 Feb-96 Feb-97 Feb-98 Feb-99 Feb-00 Feb-01 Feb-02 Feb-03 Oct-95 Oct-96 Oct-97 Oct-98 Oct-99 Oct-00 Oct-01 Oct-02

President Prime Minister

Notes

1 The exceptions in the American political science literature concern comparative presidential elections, including the illuminating analyses by Pierce (1995) and Lewis-Beck and Rice (1992).

2 As one example, Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior under the Raffarin Government at the time of this writing, sought to explain the “state of the right” in SOFRES’ annual volume. See Sarkozy 2000.

3 In 1958, de Gaulle insisted in front of the Consultative Constitutional Committee that the president should not be able to revoke the prime minister’s mandate, notwithstanding a vote of no confidence by the legislature; six years later in a press conference he changed his mind, arguing that the president could, in fact, demand the resignation of the prime minister when the latter’s “tasks had been accomplished” or because the president “no longer found him acceptable.” See Dictionnaire de la Constitution, pp. 558 and 577, respectively. Translation by author.

4 The word “fusible” in French comes from the verb fusiller, literally, to be shot by a firing squad.

5 Monthly public approval ratings are the president’s and prime minister’s aggregate “côte de confiance,” or percentage of respondents who say they have a lot or some confidence in the president’s or prime minister’s performance. Some gaps exist in the time-series for de Gaulle and Pompidou; in addition, monthly polls are often not done in August when most French take their annual vacations.

6 Author is grateful to Stéphanie Breuzard of the Paris office of SOFRES for providing the complete time series data for Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s septennat from 1974-81.

7 The simple regression equation is the following: Prime Ministerial Approval=33.19+.26(Presidential Approval). In other words, each increase of just over 4% in the presidents approval yields an increase in prime ministerial approval of 1%.

8 For details on the difficulties prime ministers encounter in presidential bids, see the comprehensive analysis by Djaguidi (1996).

9 Monthly approval ratings were not taken in March-April 1974 when Alain Poher, President of the Senate, assumed responsibilities as interim president until the May election.

10 De Gaulle’s actions in Algeria from 1959-61 were not included as rally effects. Algeria, unlike other French colonies at the time, was considered a political entity belonging to metropolitan France and had minimal representation in the National Assembly.

11 In summer 2003 67% of respondents said they supported or sympathized with the theatre performers’ strikes. See “Les Français face au mouvement social des intermittents du spectacle,” Sondages CSA, .

12 Variance inflation tests were performed on the presidential model and showed some moderate colinearity, as might be expected, between the dummy variables for Mitterrand and Chirac and the first and third cohabitations, respectively. Excluding the dummy variables for president and period of cohabitation, alternatively, does not substantively affect the coefficients.

13 To test a possible curvilinear relationship between time and public approval that would otherwise suggest an increase in public confidence in relation to growing competence over time, the model was estimated by replacing time in office with time2 and time3. Lower F-scores for the model with these substitutions were the result, indicating the absence of a curvilinear relationship and less explanatory power than months in office. 14 A graduate of the prestigious École nationale d’administration, where many high-profile political leaders earn their education.

Table 1 Regression Analysis of Presidential Approval in Fifth Republic France, 1959-2003

B Newey-West t-value coefficient Standard Error Unemployment -1.17 0.20 -5.94**** Months in Office (1-84) -0.17 0.02 -8.31**** Strikes -3.28 0.81 -4.07**** Domestic Strife 2.01 1.40 1.44* Rally Event 1.11 1.40 0.84 Bastille Day Interview -0.12 0.89 -0.14 de Gaulle (1st term) 3.03 1.33 2.28** Pompidou 0.44 1.32 0.33 Giscard -3.80 1.20 -3.15**** Mitterrand (1st term) -3.88 1.60 -2.42*** Chirac (1st term) -7.37 2.36 -3.12*** Cohabitation, Mitterrand 1 18.77 1.65 11.38**** (1986-88) Cohabitation, Mitterrand 2 -0.67 2.12 -0.32 (1993-95) Cohabitation, Chirac 12.80 2.18 5.87**** (1997-2002) Constant 66.08 1.21 54.41****

N=509 F=43.98**** Dependent variable is monthly presidential approval **** p < .001 *** p < .01 ** p < .05 * p< .10 (one-tailed)

Table 2 “Mean Effects” of Unemployment on Presidential Approval

President Unemployment Rate Effect on Public Opinion

High Low Mean High Effect Low Effect Mean Effect de Gaulle 1.9% 1.2% 1.8% -2.2% -1.4% -2.1% Pompidou 2.8% 2.0% 2.6% -3.3% -2.3% -3.0% Giscard 7.5% 2.6% 5.2% -8.8% -3.0% -6.0% Mitterrand 12.1% 7.2% 9.5% -14.2% -8.4% -11.1% Chirac 12.0% 8.5% 10.3% -14.0% -9.9% -12.1%

See the text for an explanation of the calculation of effects.

Table 3 Regression Analysis of Prime Ministerial Approval in Fifth Republic France, 1959-2003

B Newey-West t-value B Newey-West t-value coefficient Standard Error coefficient Standard Error Unemployment 1.91 0.32 6.06**** -0.99 0.75 -1.32* Months in Office (1-74) -0.12 0.40 -0.28 -0.26 0.05 -4.84**** Strikes -4.80 1.57 -3.05*** -2.86 1.43 -2.00** Domestic Strife -0.89 2.58 -0.35 0.24 1.98 0.12 Rally Event -1.37 2.12 -0.65 -1.65 1.80 -0.92 Debré 1.10 2.36 0.47 ------Pompidou 6.24 2.43 2.56** ------Couve de Murville 8.29 2.12 3.91**** ------Chaban-Delmas 18.03 2.08 8.65**** ------Messmer 3.81 2.79 1.37* ------Chirac (1974-76) ------8.17 2.52 -3.24**** Barre ------7.76 4.17 -1.83** Mauroy ------1.09 5.25 0.21 Fabius ------2.09 5.86 0.36 Chirac (cohabitation, ------2.79 6.00 0.47 1986-88) Rocard ------14.58 5.35 2.73*** Cresson ------15.08 6.08 -2.48*** Bérégovoy ------2.22 6.48 0.34 Balladur (cohabitation, ------17.23 7.35 2.35*** 1993-95) Juppé ------4.81 7.82 -0.62 Jospin (cohabitation, ------20.01 6.39 3.13**** 1997-2002) Raffarin ------6.78 5.22 1.30* Constant 31.99 2.69 11.89**** 57.37 3.20 17.92**** N=490 N=385 F=24.15**** F=46.50**** Dependent variable is monthly prime ministerial approval **** p < .001 *** p < .01 ** p < .05 * p< .10 (one-tailed)

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Appendix 1 Chronology of Significant International Crises/Foreign Policy Rally Events in Fifth Republic France

Date Event

8/61 Berlin crisis 4/61 Algeria referendum on independence passes 10/63 Evacuation of French in Bizerte, Tunisia 2/64 Military coup d’état in Gabon 5/64 Tunisia crisis; Bourguiba expropriates foreign colonists 5/67 French military bases in the Sahara are officially closed/evacuated 7/67 de Gaulle trip to Canada; “vive le Québec libre” speech incites Québec nationalists 8/68 Invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact nations 8/68 French military intervention in Chad 10/70 French troops clash with forces in Chad 5/77 French killed Maritania 5/78 Crisis in Zaire; French troops sent 9/79 Central African Republic; seizure of power by Dacko, backed by French troops 10/83 Beirut crisis/French military casualties 11/83 Military raid in Mid-East by French troops 12/83 Bombings in Mid-East 1/84 French troops in Chad killed 9/84 Evacuation of troops/French citizens in Chad 8/90-10/90 Occupation of Kuwait by Iraq 1/91–2/91 Gulf War; French participation 9/92 Ratification of Maastricht treaty by referendum 7/95 Interception of Rainbow-Warrior by French marines 6/97 French troops deployed in Brazzaville, Congo 5/96 French troops sent to reinforce troops in the Central African Republic 11/96 French troops deployed in Bengui, Central African Republic 9-10/01 Aftermath of 9/11 attacks in New York, Washington; President Chirac particularly active on the international scene 10-12/02 French troop deployments and military actions in the Côte d’Ivoire 5/03 French army reconnaissance mission in northern Congo

Appendix 2 Chronology of Domestic Strife Events in Fifth Republic France

Date Event

1/75 Hostages taken at Orly Airport by terrorists 3/82 Terrorist attack on train in France 4/82 Terrorist attack on the rue Marbeuf in Paris 8/82 Terrorist attack on Iranian embassy in Paris 1/83 Two officers killed in New Caledonia 2/83 Terrorism in Paris 1/85 State of emergency declared in New Caledonia 2/86 Terrorist bombing in Paris 7/86 Terrorist bombing in Paris 9/86 Series of terrorist bombings in Paris 9/87 Civil unrest in New Caledonia 5/89 Assassination in New Caledonia 7/95 RER (Paris) train station bombing at St.-Michel 8/95 Bombing at Place Charles de Gaulle in Paris 12/96 RER (Paris) train station bombing at the Palais Royal 2/98 Assassination of Prefect Claude Érignac in Corsica 11/99 Double attack in Corsica 1/01 Bombing of Palais de Justice in Annecy; Corsican nationalists suspected 8/03 Several buildings bombed in Ajaccio, Corsica, including the high court building (Tribunal de Grande Instance)

Appendix 3 Chronology of Major Strikes and Demonstrations in Fifth Republic France

Date Event

2/59 Occupation of establishments in Fives-Lille-Caille 6/59 Demonstration by the Comité national d’action laïque against education laws 12/59 End of strike by public employees 10-11/60 Strike and demonstrations upon the firing of 3,000 workers at Renault 4/61 General strike called by unions and parties of the left 10/61 Demonstrations by Algerians in Paris with significant police repression 12/61 Street demonstrations against the Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS) 12/61-2/62 Miners’ strike in Decazeville 1/62 Anti-OAS demonstration in Paris 2/62 Anti-OAS demonstration with 8 dead in the aftermath 3/63 Miners’ strike 11/63 Large demonstrations against the French nuclear strike force 1/64 Layoffs in the ports of Loire-Atlantique, strikes, occupation of factories 5/66 General strike 3/67 End of the strike of Rhodiaceta 5/67 General strike called by parties and unions of the left concerning social security 1/68 Worker demonstrations in Caen 5/68 Month-long student demonstrations, occupations of universities 3/69 24-hour general strike 9/69 Transportation strike against governmental austerity plan 2/71 Demonstrations by the Secours rouge in Paris, arrest of student Gilles Guyot 3/71 End of factory strikes in Nantes after 43 days 4/71 Strike at the Renault Le Mans factory 3/73 Students demonstrate against law abrogating military service before age 21 6/73 Strike at the clock factory Lip in Besancon; violent incidents in Paris over immigration policies 10-12/73 Strike by the Posts, Telegraph, and Telecommunications sector 2/3-74 Strikes in the banking sector 3/76 Student demonstrations over university reform plans 10/76 National strike against the Barre Government 5/77 National strike against government social policy 3/79 Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) strike with violent repercussions 5/80 Student demonstrations against higher education reform plans 3-4/84 Large demonstration at Versailles by private educators 11-12/86 Student demonstrations against government education reforms 12/88 Transportation strikes in Paris 9/91 Demonstrations by farmers in Paris against the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Economic Community 1/94 Large demonstration by 200,000 protestors in defense of public schools 11/95 Student strikes against the 1996 government budget; strikes began in Rouen 11-12/95 Strikes against the Juppé government in transportation, electricity, and postal sectors 8/96 Expulsion of illegal immigrants provokes violent outbursts in l’Egile Saint-Bernard 11/96 Transportation sector strikes/blocking of major highways in France 12/97 Unemployed workers occupy Assedic buildings 1/99 Demonstrations against PACs legislation (according civil unions to non-married couples) 3/00 Mobilization of teachers against secondary and college-level education reform 5-7/03 Transportation, teachers, and theatre strikes; summer festivals at Aix and Avignon canceled