France: Swagging Between Presidential and Parliamentary Systems
France swung between different styles of presidential, semi-presidential and parliamentary systems of government; parliamentary systems under Louis XVIII, Charles X, the July Monarchy under Louis Philippe, King of the French and the Third Republic and Fourth Republic, though the extent of full parliamentary control differed in each, from one extreme under Charles X (a strong head of state) to full parliamentary control (under the Third Republic). Napoleon III offered attempts at some degree of parliamentary control of the executive, though few regarded his regime as genuinely parliamentary and democratic. A presidential system existed under the short-lived Second Republic. The modern Fifth Republic system combines aspects of presidentialism and parliamentarianism.
Parliamentarism in France differed from parliamentarism in the United Kingdom in several ways. First, the French National Assembly had more power over the cabinet than the British Parliament had over its cabinet. Second, France had shorter lived premierships. In the seventy years of the Third Republic, France had over fifty premierships.
In 1980 Maurice Duverger claimed that the Fifth Republic was a government in which the president was supreme, a virtual king. More recent analyses of France's system have downgraded the importance of the French president. During cohabitation, when the National Assembly of France and presidency are controlled by opposite parties, the French president is rather weak. Thus, some scholars see the French system as not one that is half presidential and half parliamentary, but as one that alternates between presidentialism and parliamentarism.
Read more about this topic: History Of Parliamentarism
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