FRENCH CONSTITUTION - CONSTITUTION OF THE FIFTH REPUBLIC OF FRANCE

This article is discussing about the basic features of the Constitution of the fifth Republic of France with constitutional provisions of other country such as United States, UK and India

 

The Constitution of the fifth Republic of France as approved at the referendum held on 28 September 1958 with the incorporation of subsequent amendments exhibits the following distinctive fundamental features.

 

1. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY:

 

The first distinguishing feature of the 1958 French Constitution is that, like the American Constitution, it embodies the Principle of Popular sovereignty. This is clearly manifested in Article 2 which lays down: “National sovereignty resides in the people who exercise it through their representatives and by means of referendum”. “Suffrage is always universal, equal and secret”. The system of Government established and maintained under it is based upon popular consent.

 

2. A UNITARY STATE:

 

The French Republic is a unitary state. According to the original Constitution it will comprise Metropolitan France and Overseas departments only. The overseas territories can choose for themselves whether to become completely independent and separate, or to join with the Republic in forming a community of which the President of the Republic is the head. The Metropolitan French is divided, for local Government, into municipalities (called Communes), grouped into several departments and regions. The powers and the very existence of various local governments units depend upon the national Governments decrees.

 

3. QUASI-SEPARATION OF POWERS:

 

The governmental system is based on the partial separation powers. It stands “between the British system, in which Parliament and Cabinet merge, and the American which is based on an almost complete severance of Congress and the President.” The Constitution has endowed the President of the Republic, who is selected separately for 7 years by all qualified adult voters to appoint all ministers, including the Prime Minister. But neither the President nor the ministers are members of Parliament. The President also presides over the meetings of Cabinet. To this extent, the French executive resembles the presidential or non-parliamentary executive as it is found in the United States.

 

But the French executive may also be described as a parliamentary one insofar as the Council of Minister headed by the Prime Minister, like the British Cabinet, is responsible to the National Assemble. The Prime Minister and his cabinet members speak and sit in the Parliament and resign, when the National Assembly adopts a motion of censure or when it disapproves of the Government program or a general policy declaration.

 

Thus, the French system represents, to quote Professor Wheare, “a curious hybrid of parliamentary and presidential executives”.

 

4. A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC:

 

An equal important feature of the Constitution is that “France is a Republic, indivisible, secular, democratic and social” (Article 2). The President is elected for seven years by direct universal suffrage and he appoints the Prime Minister and Government who are not allowed to elected members of the French Parliament but are responsible to it. The French Parliament is elected on a democratic basis. All citizens, irrespective of race, origin or religion are equal before the law and capable of exercising their civil and political rights. Article 2 proclaims that French Government is “Government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

 

5. A DUAL EXECUTIVE:

 

The French executive is not single, as in the United States, but dual. It consists of a President and a Government headed by the Prime Minister. The President, elected by the people for seven years, appoints the Prime Minister and other Ministers who, though not member of the Parliament, are responsible to it. The President presides over the Council of Ministers, while “The Government determines and conducts the policy of the nation” (Article 20) and “The Prime Minister leads the action of the Government” (Article 21). Thus, the Constitution creates dual executive.

 

6. BILL OF RIGHTS:

 

Like the American and Indian Constitution, the Constitution of the Fifth Republic of France provides for some basic rights of the Frenchmen. A statement of such rights is contained in the Preamble and Section 1 of the Constitution. The to the Constitution begins:

 

“The French people solemnly proclaim its attachment to the Rights of Man and to the principles of national sovereignty as defined by the Declaration of 1789 and as confirmed and completed by the preamble to the Constitution of 1946”

 

The Rights of Man refers to the historic Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen issued by the French Assembly in 1789, which asserted that the sovereignty resides in the nation and not in the Monarch or anybody else, that there should be no class distinction or privileges, and that all men were entitles to personal freedom and to equality before the law.

 

By including the following rights, the Constitution of 1946 completed and confirmed the aforementioned Rights of Man:

 

        i.       Right to equality for women;

       ii.       Right to work;

      iii.      Right to belong to trade unions;

      iv.      Right to strike;

       v.       Right to education;

      vi.      Right to social welfare;

     vii.     Right to racial equality;

    viii.    Right to conditions necessary for family development.

 

The Preamble to the Constitution of the Fifth Republic covers all these matters. Article 2 of the new Constitution “guarantees equality before the law of all citizens without distinction of birth, race or religion”.  Article 3 lays down that all adult French nationals, of either sex, are electors and are “capable of exercising their civil and political rights”. Article 4 lays down that “political rights and groups take part in the expression of suffrage” and thus guarantees the right of forming political association.

 

The basic rights are upheld by the courts in France, and by a Constitutional Council which keeps watch over the constitutional validity of laws passed by the Parliament.

 

7. RIGID CONSTITUTION:

 

The Constitution of the Fifth Republic is a rigid one for it may be amended only by a special procedure. The initiative for amending the Constitution belongs both to the President of the Republic on the proposal of the Prime Minister and to the member of Parliament. But an amendment must be submitted to a referendum unless it has been carried by a three-fifth’s majority in a joint sitting of both Houses: The National Assembly and the Senate.

 

8. CONSTITUTIONAL RECOGNITION OF POLITICAL PARTIES:

 

A specific feature of the new Constitution is that, unlike the American Constitution or Indian Constitution, it recognises the role of political parties. Article 4 of the Constitution states that political parties “shall be formed freely and shall carry on their activities freely” but they “must respect the principle of national sovereignty and democracy”.

 

Above discussed features are the salient feature of the Constitution of Fifth Republic of French.