France Country in western Europe

bounded to the northeast by Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany, east by Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, south by the Mediterranean Sea, southwest by Spain and Andorra, and west by the Atlantic Ocean. Government Under the 1958 Fifth Republic constitution, amended in 1962 and 1995, France has a two-chamber legislature and a `shared executive´ government. The legislature comprises a national assembly, with 577 deputies elected for five-year terms from single-member constituencies following a two-ballot run-off majority system, and a senate, whose 321 members are indirectly elected, a third at a time, triennially for nine-year terms from groups of local councillors. Twenty-two national-assembly and 13 senate seats are elected by overseas départements (administrative regions) and territories, and 12 senate seats by French nationals abroad. The national assembly is the dominant chamber. The senate can temporarily veto legislation, but its vetoes can be overridden by the national assembly. France's executive is functionally divided between the president and prime minister. The president, elected for a seven-year term by direct universal suffrage after gaining a majority in either a first or second run -off ballot, functions as head of state, commander in chief of the armed forces, and guardian of the constitution. The president selects the prime minister, presides over cabinet meetings, countersigns government bills, negotiates foreign treaties, and can call referenda and dissolve the national assembly (although only one dissolution a year is permitted). The prime minister is selected from the ranks of the national assembly. According to the constitution, ultimate control over policymaking rests with the prime minister and council of ministers. The president and prime minister work with ministers from political and technocratic backgrounds, assisted by a skilled and powerful civil service. A nine-member constitutional council (selected every three years in a staggered manner by the state president and the presidents of the senate and national assembly, and serving nine-year, nonrenewable terms) and a Conseil d'Etat (`council of state´), staffed by senior civil servants, rule on the legality of legislation passed. At the local level there are 21 regional councils concerned with economic planning. Below these are 96 département councils and almost 36,000 town and village councils. Corsica has its own directly elected 61-seat parliament with powers to propose amendments to national-assembly legislation. There are four overseas dé partements (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Ré union) with their own elected general and regional councils, two overseas ` collective territories´ (Mayotte and St Pierre and Miquelon) administered by appointed commissioners, and four overseas territories (French Polynesia, the French Southern and Antarctic Territories, New Caledonia , and the Wallis and Futuna Islands) governed by appointed high commissioners, which form constituent parts of the French Republic, returning deputies to the national legislature. History For earlier periods of French history, see France: history to 1515, France: history 1515-1815, and France: history 1815-1945. The aftermath of World War II Although Paris was physically undamaged in World War II, many cities, such as Brest, Rouen, Lorient, Le Havre, and Caen, were in ruins. The French had suffered considerable economic privations during the years 1940-44; and France in 1944 was in the midst of an inflation that was threatening the very existence of the middle class. France's internal problems were not its only ones. The pre-1939 French colonial empire was on the verge of disintegration. Syria and Lebanon had already achieved independence; the French West Africa possessions were demanding at least a measure of self-government, and some nationalists were calling for outright independence. In Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) the communists and other nationalists soon launched a full-scale war of independence against France (the Indochina War). These colonial problems drained France's economy severely in the post-war years and had considerable repercussions on internal French politics. Towards a new constitution A constituent assembly charged with drawing up a constitution for a Fourth Republic was elected in 1945, an election in which women voted in France for the first time. The Communists were returned as the strongest party because of their important role in the wartime resistance, closely followed by the Socialists and a new political organization known as the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP), a group of the progressive centre drawing considerable strength from former Catholic resistance fighters. When the constituent assembly met, Charles de Gaulle returned to the people the powers he had exercised as head of the provisional government formed at the liberation in 1944. Having been given a new mandate, he formed a government drawn from the three main parties, and pledged to implement a far- reaching social programme. However, de Gaulle resigned in January 1946 because he did not want to be a figurehead president in the manner of the Third Republic, yet already found himself dependent on the political parties, especially the Communists and Socialists. Throughout 1946 France was searching for a new constitution. The reconciliation of a sovereign legislature with a stable executive was the stumbling block, though the seriousness of the country's economic position clearly pointed to the need for a strong government. A new constitution was eventually approved in a referendum in October. Under the new constitution a second chamber, the Council of the Republic, with members chosen by indirect election, was given a voice, though not a decisive one, in the legislature; the president was to be elected by the two chambers in joint session. There were also provisions for the organization of the French Union - the new term for France's depleted colonial empire. The Fourth Republic (1946-58): general characteristics and developments Despite attempts to correct some of the flaws of the Third Republic, the new constitution once again provided for a weak executive and a powerful national assembly. With 26 impermanent governments being formed during the period of the Fourth Republic, real power passed to the civil service, which, by introducing a new system of ` indicative economic planning´, engineered rapid economic reconstruction. The peaceful decolonization of Morocco and Tunisia in 1956 and the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958 were also important achievements. In contrast, the forcible expulsion of the French from Indochina in 1954 was for many a national humiliation, and the bitter colonial conflict in Algeria was to bring about the demise of the Fourth Republic itself. The Blum government of 1946-47 In the November 1946 elections, which created the first national assembly of the Fourth Republic, the Socialists fell to third place among the leading parties. The Communists were still the strongest single party, but the majority in the assembly was anticommunist. In the new conditions of equipoise between Communists and the MRP, the Socialists, despite their depleted numbers, secured the vital position in the middle of the political seesaw, and it was in these circumstances that in December Lé on Blum formed a purely Socialist government. Blum's stopgap government launched an attack on the price rises and on financial instability. Attempts were also made to settle the Indochinese question, where the French were attempting to regain control of their colonies from the nationalists, who had themselves ousted the Japanese- sponsored regime at the end of World War II. The government also laid the foundations of a new Anglo- French entente. In January 1947 the assembly installed as first president of the new republic the Socialist Vincent Auriol, a close friend and colleague of Blum. Governments and events from 1947 to 1957 Blum resigned for reasons of health and was succeeded by Paul Ramadier (also Socialist), who headed a coalition. The change of government did not interfere with the negotiations for a treaty of alliance with the UK, and the treaty was eventually signed at Dunkirk on 4 March 1947. However, the economic situation was deteriorating, and there soon appeared a deepening division in the government between the Communists and the rest of the ministers. This period was also marked by the formation of the Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF, `rally of the French people´). The RPF was an organization fostered by de Gaulle as a nationwide movement of national union, and though he was accused by the left, especially the Communists, of favouring reactionary elements, the movement constituted a new and popular force that for a time materially affected the political balance in France. But meanwhile the economic situation was growing steadily worse. The political situation was further weakened by the refusal of the Communists to vote for the funding of military operations against the nationalists in Indochina and to suppress a revolt in Madagascar. The Communists then left the government in 1947. In September 1948 a coalition under the Radical Socialist Henri Queuille took office, and a period of relative political stability followed. The following year France joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a founder member. In July 1949 Queuille's government fell. There was a series of rapid changes of government before political stability returned with Georges Bidault as premier. By early 1950 the situation in Indochina was becoming extremely serious. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny was appointed commander in chief of the army and French high commissioner there in an attempt to retrieve the situation; his subsequent premature death probably put the seal on certain French defeat in the area. In May 1950 Robert Schuman, the French foreign minister, put forward his `Schuman Plan´, which eventually developed into the European Coal and Steel Community, the basis of what is now the European Union. By mid-1951 many observers believed that de Gaulle's return to power was imminent. After a temporary improvement, the economic situation was weakening again, a bitter domestic battle was raging on the question of state aid to church schools, and abroad the Indochina crisis continued. In relation to the planned European Defence Community there was considerable controversy in France about whether a European army should include West German forces, both because would involve the recreation of a German army, regarded by many French people as synonymous with the recreation of German `militarism´, and because it would subsume French forces within a supranational army. After a series of short-lived governments, René Pleven became premier in August 1951, and was succeeded at the beginning of 1952 by Edgar Faure, a Radical Socialist. Faure reopened the question of Tunisian independence, but his government lasted only a few weeks, and in March 1952 Antoine Pinay, an Independent Republican, succeeded him. In July the Gaullists split on a question of party discipline, and after this time de Gaulle's prospects of a return to power receded rapidly, despite the country's blatant political instability, illustrated by constant changes of government. In May 1953, conscious of a loss of popular support, de Gaulle resigned from the leadership of the RPF, and withdrew from politics. After a prolonged period without a government, France got a new premier, Laniel, in June 1953. In October 1953 the National Assembly voted in favour of continuing the Indochina War, although the French position there was rapidly becoming untenable. The fall of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 shocked French public opinion deeply, and the following month the government was defeated on an Indochina issue. The new premier was the Radical Socialist Pierre Mendès-France. In July the fighting in Indochina was ended by an agreement reached at Geneva. This was generally regarded in France as a crushing surrender; the 80-year French occupation of Indochina came formally to an end on 29 April 1955. Mendès-France's North Africa policy eventually led to his defeat in the assembly in February 1955, and he was succeeded by Faure. The Franco-Tunisian home-rule agreements were signed in Paris in June 1955, and in October the former Moroccan sultan, deposed by the French two years earlier, was restored to his throne. But by this time the bitter armed conflict between nationalists and the French army and settlers in Algeria was becoming serious. At home political stability and possibly the Fourth Republic itself were temporarily threatened by the rise of the violently right-wing poujadist movement, although its popularity was only transient. The Saarland referendum in October, with its overwhelming victory for the pro-German parties, was another blow to France. In November Faure's government was defeated on a question of electoral reform. The general elections of January 1956 produced an indecisive result, but in February the Socialist Guy Mollet became premier. Although governing with a precariously balanced coalition, he was premier longer that any other holder of the office under the Fourth Republic. Moroccan independence was announced in March 1956; but it was the increasingly critical Algerian situation that was basically responsible for the defeat of Mollet's government in June 1957, and of its successors. At the beginning of 1958 the European Economic Community (EEC) came into being. In March 1957 France had been one of the signatories of the Treaty of Rome, which had established the EEC, but in 1958 it seemed that France would not be able to provide it with the expected leadership. There was inflation and economic stagnation at home, and the insoluble Algerian problem across the Mediterranean. France appeared to be moving rapidly towards chaos. The coming of the Fifth Republic In May 1958 a revolt of French settlers and army officers in Algeria against what they regarded as the effeteness of the government in Paris and its handling of the Algerian war led to the overthrow of the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle was swept back to power on a wave of popular enthusiasm. He indicated that this time he must be given the means to take whatever measures he deemed necessary to save France, and his policies were approved by a referendum in September. A new constitution establishing the Fifth Republic came into force in October. The de Gaulle era, 1958-69 In December 1958 de Gaulle was elected as the Fifth Republic's first president, with wide executive powers. The franc was devalued, and a series of drastic measures enacted, aimed at stabilizing the economy. In the longer term, the de Gaulle era was one of economic growth and large-scale rural-to-urban migration. The relationship between France and its overseas possessions was re- examined: those territories wishing to retain ties with France entered the French Community, which had superseded the French Union. Guinea, however, voted for separation from France and became an independent state without French connections in October 1958. By 1961 so many overseas possessions had gained independence within the French Community that the Community itself was dissolved. France's economy grew stronger through the succeeding years, though some underlying weaknesses remained, and its foreign policy developed distinctive traits. France took steps to become an independent military nuclear power just when Britain was abandoning the role. Although retaining friendly relations with Britain and the USA at the start of his regime (he paid a successful state visit to Britain in 1960 and had cordial talks in Paris with President Kennedy in 1961), de Gaulle took the decisive step of actively promoting closer Franco-German relations, and so officially ended a period of hatred and mistrust between the two countries that had been virtually continuous since 1870. Close economic and cultural links were established between France and the German Federal Republic, and in January 1963 de Gaulle and the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer signed the Franco- German `reconciliation treaty´ in Paris. Meanwhile de Gaulle's decision that the Algerian problem could be solved only by granting full independence to the nationalists caused bitterness among the settlers and officers who had brought him to power in the expectation that he would win the war there for France. There were abortive revolts against de Gaulle in Algeria in 1960 and 1961, and several attempts were made on his life, then and later, by supporters of the Organisation de l'Armée Secrète (OAS), which during 1960-61 carried out a systematic terrorist campaign in both Algeria and France. As time passed it attracted some of de Gaulle's foremost original supporters, such as Gen Raoul Salan, Georges Bidault, and Jacques Soustelle, but by 1963 the OAS was a spent force. Algeria became independent in 1962, after a referendum had approved de Gaulle's policy there. Although there was at times considerable criticism of de Gaulle's government, not merely among extremists but among moderates who felt that he was riding roughshod over democratic principles, his supporters won an overall majority over all other parties in the elections in November 1962. Under de Gaulle, France dominated the European Economic Community, and in January 1963 vetoed Britain's application to join it. De Gaulle distrusted Britain's motives, and was suspicious of Britain's ties with the USA at a time when France was attempting to become the leader of a third ` European´ force, which would be independent of both the Soviet and the `Anglo-Saxon´ (Anglo-American) blocs. This pronouncedly independent line was to show itself in France's withdrawal of its fleets from NATO commands, in its first atomic- bomb test in 1960 and hydrogen- bomb test in 1968, and in de Gaulle's outspoken criticism in 1965 of US policy in Vietnam. In 1965 de Gaulle was re-elected president under the new constitutional arrangement whereby the president was chosen by universal suffrage. However, the election was close: the first ballot failed to give him an outright majority, and in the second ballot his left-wing opponent Franç ois Mitterrand polled nearly 45% of the vote. De Gaulle continued with his independent approach to foreign policy. He took tough action with the EEC in the course of 1966, and in the same year announced the French withdrawal from the integrated military command of NATO, with complete withdrawal to occur in 1969. Nevertheless, de Gaulle's position seemed uncertain. His paternalistic approach to domestic affairs, reflected in censorship and centralization, brought about a public reaction, and in the general elections of 1967 the Gaullists and the `right coalition´ won only a bare majority. In May 1968 a student revolt, largely in the Latin Quarter of Paris, was followed by the most extensive wave of strikes that France had known since 1936. The government was severely shaken, but de Gaulle recovered; the elections of 1968 returned an enormous Gaullist majority, and a new phase of Gaullism seemed to be inaugurated by the appointment of Maurice Couve de Murville as prime minister. By November de Gaulle was in a sufficiently strong position to refuse to devalue the franc. But the referendum of 1969, which sought to reform the Senate and local government, went against de Gaulle. He resigned in April 1969 and took no further part in French public life. Pompidou's presidency, 1969-74 De Gaulle's former prime minister Georges Pompidou was elected president on de Gaulle's resignation. Pompidou maintained some Gaullist principles in foreign policy, such as retaining independent possession of nuclear weapons, the desire for understanding with communist countries, and a critical attitude towards Israel.