Parliamentary dissolution (France)

The theory of parliamentary government.

In France, the right to dissolve a parliament—i.e. prematurely terminate the mandate of a chamber of parliament—has been attributed to the Head of State or, more exceptionally, to the Government or even to one of the chambers, under various regimes since 1802: First Empire, Restoration, July Monarchy, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Republics.

It was first introduced in the Constitution of the Year X (1802) for the benefit of the Conservative Senate. However, dissolution (in the truly parliamentary sense) originated in France during the Restoration in the Charter of 1814 (Article 50). At first, dissolution was in line with parliamentary theory, before becoming an authoritarian prerogative under Charles X. Under the July Monarchy, Article 42 of the Charter of 1830 again provided for dissolution, but this time a genuine system of ministerial accountability was introduced. The two procedures were balanced out—motion of censure versus dissolution—to such an extent that France experienced its first authentic parliamentary system, where the Government became the real point of contact between the two fundamental bodies, the monarch and the elected Chamber.

Outside the parliamentary tradition, the authoritarian regime of the Second Empire gave the Emperor the right to dissolve the Legislature.

The Constitutional Laws of 1875 took up the Orleanist mechanism of dissolution, adapting it. However, the 16 May 1877 crisis made the procedure evil to the Republicans, and dissolution was no longer used for the rest of the Third Republic. This allowed instability in the Chamber of Deputies to develop without sanction, resulting in ministerial instability that worsened from decade to decade.

In 1946, the Constituent Assembly, informed by France's recent history, retained the right of dissolution but made it an "automatic dissolution" in the face of the chamber's instability—rather than a discretionary prerogative of the executive. The constitutional practice of the Fourth Republic showed the limits of the right of dissolution: while governments fell without respite, only one dissolution took place in 1955. The 1958 Constitution therefore put an end to the supervision of dissolution: from now on, it is a discretionary prerogative of the President of the Republic, as defined in Article 12.

However, the threat of a motion of censure to governments has been removed by the parliamentary majority's stability since the 1962 legislative elections. Dissolution under the Fifth Republic thus has a different face from what the theory of parliamentary government teaches: it has only been used once to resolve a conflict between the executive and legislative powers (in 1962), while the other dissolutions carried out obey different logic.

The Birth of Dissolution of an Elected Chamber in French Law: The Consulate

The Senate, by acts entitled sénatus-consultes, [...] dissolves the Corps législatif and the Tribunat. — Extract from article 55 of the organic senatus-consult of the Constitution of 16 thermidor year X (August 4, 1802).

The "sénatus-consulte organique de l'an X", which established the Consulat à vie (or "Consulat viager") was also the first constitutional text to mention the possibility of ending the mandate of one of the legislative chambers.

The adopted procedure is quite exceptional, and testifies to the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte did not envisage the new regime as a parliamentary one but rather as an authoritarian one.. Dissolution of the Tribunate or the Corps législatif (two of the chambers of a tricameral parliament) was effected by an act of the conservative Senate (a "senatus consultum"), but the initiative was reserved for the government, that is to say the First Consul (Article 56 of the Sénatus-Consulte). This is a strange mechanism, intended to ensure the submission of chambers with already restricted powers, particularly since no time limit was set for convening the renewed chamber.

During the Restoration

Each year, the King convenes the two Chambers; he prorogues them, and may dissolve that of the deputies of the departments; but, in this case, he must convene a new one within three months. — Article 50 of the Constitutional Charter of June 4, 1814.

King Charles X, whose intransigence put an end to the Restoration.

As early as the draft constitution proposed by the Conservative Senate in April 1814, the right of the monarch to dissolve the lower house of parliament was introduced. The Constitutional Charter of 1814 confirmed this prerogative, which was widely accepted in constitutional thinking at the time.

Initially, for the drafters of the text, the aim was to guarantee the pre-eminence of the King of France and prevent the Chamber of Deputies from encroaching on his prerogatives. However, it soon became clear that royal pre-eminence could only be based on the support of the lower house for the government's policies — support made difficult by the lack of organization into political parties — and therefore on a truly parliamentary mechanism of parliamentary confidence in the ministry. Given these conditions, resorting to dissolution to settle a conflict between the executive and legislative powers was akin to making the electorate (restricted by the system of census suffrage) "the final arbiter of institutions".

Parliamentary use of the right of dissolution until 1830

The three dissolutions (in 1816, 1824, and 1827) that took place before 1830 all conform to the theory of parliamentary rule.

The first dissolution, on 5 September 1816, occurred when the parliamentary majority conflicted with the government. Indeed, the Chamber of Deputies elected in August 1815 (the "Chambre introuvable") whose majority was ultra-royalist, wished to dominate the Richelieu ministry. To safeguard his governmental prerogatives against the hold of the parliamentary majority, Louis XVIII, urged on by Decazes, Minister of Police, dissolved the lower chamber, asking the electorate to arbitrate the conflict. The elections were a resounding success for the King and the government.

The other two dissolutions, in 1824 and 1827, corresponded to a second hypothesis, in which the King prevented a possible conflict between the government and the lower chamber. In each case, Charles X wished to protect the Villèle ministry, whose still existing majority was weakened by political circumstances. The elections of 1824 supported the Villèle government, but those of 1827 brought in a moderate majority. The king drew the only logical political consequence from this, appointing a moderate to head a new ministry: the Martignac government.

Authoritarian drift: the last dissolution of 1830

In August 1829, dismissing the moderate Martignac ministry, Charles X appointed an ultra-royalist, Jules de Polignac, to head a new government. To resolve the conflict between the moderate Chamber of Deputies and the ultra-royalist government, the King appealed to the electorate on 16 May 1830, in keeping with parliamentary tradition.

However, parliamentary logic was undermined when Charles X refused to accept the verdict of the legislative elections, which were in favor of the moderates. Faced with a "legal country" that did not share his political views, he used Article 14 of the Charter of 1814 as the legal basis for a new dissolution on 25 July 1830, even before the new Chamber had met: one of the four "Saint-Cloud ordinances" was the one dissolving the Chamber of Deputies. However, this dissolution never took place, due to the revolution of the Trois Glorieuses.

By refusing to accept the verdict of the ballot box in 1830, Charles X imposed an authoritarian vision of the system born in 1814, in which dissolution lost its parliamentary character, becoming nothing more than a tool for dominating the lower house. This gave rise to a veritable constitutional deadlock, which would ultimately be resolved by the revolution of the Three Glorious Years.

During July Monarchy

The King convenes the two Chambers each year: he prorogues them and may dissolve the Chamber of Deputies; but, in this case, he must convene a new Chamber within three months. — Article 42 of the Constitutional Charter of 14 August 1830.

King Louis-Philippe I, France's first truly parliamentary monarch.

The text of the Charter of 14 August 1830 remained largely unchanged: the deputies only made minor alterations to the text of the Charter of 1814. Where Louis XVIII had firmly intended to "grant" the Charter of 1814, Louis-Philippe I created a "pact" with the nation. While the nature of Louis-Philippe I's legitimacy to reign remains controversial, between those who consider that he reigns "because Bourbon" — monarchic legitimacy stemming from the right of blood (Guizot) — and those who believe that legitimacy comes from the people, Louis-Philippe I reigned "because he was Bourbon" (Dupin), but both theories agreed that the new charter was a pact between the country and the king, rather than a manifestation of the monarch's unilateral will.

The general spirit of the institutions was transformed by the circumstances in which the Charter was conceived: the negation of national sovereignty represented by the Charter of 1814 was replaced by a regime born of revolution and an appeal by the elected chamber to another sovereign. Henceforth, two distinct centers of power emerged: the king and the elected chambere. As the Charter of 1830 was scarcely more detailed than its predecessor, it was primarily up to political practice to implement this compromise, but the essence of the regime was already parliamentary.

Use in accordance with parliamentary theory

The institutional practice of the July Monarchy was rich in uses of the right of dissolution: no legislature completed its normal five-year term. Six dissolutions can be distinguished:

• 31 May 1831 (elections of 1831);
• 25 May 1834 (elections of 1834);
• 3 October 1837 (elections of 1837);
• 2 February 1839 (elections of 1839);
• 13 June 1842 (elections of 1842);
• 6 July 1846 (elections of 1846).

These numerous dissolutions never drew any protests from the country despite the intensive use of the procedure, which could have been construed as abuse. Dissolution was often carried out on the initiative of the government, which could thus choose the most opportune moment to hold new elections, a procedure perfectly in line with English-style parliamentarism.

A political system that makes dissolution ineffective

However, despite its frequent use, the right of dissolution had little effect beyond the holding of the elections themselves. The ministries that should have benefited from dissolution—thanks to strengthened majorities sufficient to carry out their policies—emerged from the elections as weakened as they had entered them, apart from the 1846 election.

The main cause of this lack of effect was the inorganization of political parties: unlike the English model, dominated at the time by Whigs and Conservatives, the French regime suffered from the absence of parties that would structure the vote, the composition of the chamber, and define clear political options for the electorate.

The result of this disorganization of the vote was the absence of a stable majority until 1840, and the futility, in almost all cases, of elections, which failed to produce a clear majority for a definite policy. The only "successful" dissolution, in 1846, which gave the Guizot ministry a strengthened Conservative majority, was a paradoxical failure: due to the censal nature of suffrage, the chamber was hardly representative of the country's real political trends. The result was that, backed by a firm majority, Guizot's conservative and immobilist policy on electoral law eventually became unbearable for the "real country", which revolted (Revolution of 1848).

During Bonaparte's Second Republic and the Second Empire

Emperor Napoleon III, circa 1860.

Crévera! Crévera pas! The black cloud of dissolution, cartoon by Honoré Daumier, "Actualités" series in Le Charivari, 12 March 1870.

Completely absent from the 1848 constitution, the right of dissolution reappeared in the new constitution drafted by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, based on the plebiscite that immediately followed the coup d'état of 2 December 1851. The establishment of the Second Empire at the end of 1852 did not change the constitutional texts: the text of 14 January 1852, which established the "decennial republic", remained in force, modified by the sénatus-consulte of 7 November 1852.

The President of the Republic convenes, adjourns, prorogues and dissolves the Legislative Body. In the event of dissolution, the President of the Republic must convene a new one within six months.

— Article 46 of the Constitution of January 14, 1852.

In the event of dissolution of the Legislative Body, and until a new convocation, the Senate, on the proposal of the President of the Republic, provides, by emergency measures, all that is necessary for the running of the government.

— Article 33 of the Constitution of January 14, 1852.

Between 1852 and 1870, numerous constitutional amendments were adopted. However, during this period, the only change concerning dissolution was the people's adoption of a new constitution, following the referendum of 8 May 1870: the "sénatus-consulte du 21 mai 1870 fixant la Constitution de l'Empire". This new text made only a slight change to the one in force since 1852, by abolishing the Senate's right to take emergency measures to meet the needs of the State, until the Legislative Corps was convened after its dissolution: the 1870 constitution established true egalitarian bicameralism between the two chambers.

The Emperor convenes, adjourns, prorogues and dissolves the Corps législatif.

In the event of dissolution, the Emperor must convene a new one within six months.

The Emperor declares the sessions of the Legislative Body closed.

— Article 35 of the sénatus-consulte of May 21, 1870, establishing the Constitution of the Empire.

Thanks to the various procedures implemented to "neutralize" universal suffrage and make it conform to the wishes of political power (such as "official candidacies"), the Corps législatif was never a dangerous chamber for the Government. It was dissolved only once, in 1857. Napoleon III wished to shorten the mandate of the first Corps législatif by one year, to demonstrate to the whole of Europe that the imperial regime was popular.

During the Third Republic

Article 5 of the Constitutional Act of 25 February 1875 refers to the dissolution of the National Assembly:

The President of the Republic may, with the assent of the Senate, dissolve the Chamber of Deputies before the legal expiry of its term of office.

In this case, the electoral colleges are convened for new elections within three months."

— Article 5 of the constitutional law of February 25, 1875 on the organization of public powers.

The emergence of dissolution in a republican regime

Official portrait of President Mac Mahon, initiator of the 16 May crisis.

This is the first time that a republican regime in France has provided for the right of dissolution, in favor of an executive authority, against the chamber elected by universal suffrage. This power is a direct "import" from the Charter of 1830, from which the constitutional laws were inspired. The "three-month" time limit itself takes up a similar provision from Article 42 of the 1830 charter.

The original feature of dissolution under the Third Republic is the very important role played by the Senate, which has the power to authorize or refuse dissolution. It was thus placed in the position of arbiter in conflicts between the President and the Chamber of Deputie. This solution may have seemed to temper the exorbitant power, in the eyes of the Republicans, given to the President of the Republic — and significantly, the amendment including this prior authorization came from Henri Wallon, "the father of the Republic" — but above all, it made the hypothesis of dissolution highly unlikely if the majorities of the two chambers concurred.

The crisis of 16 May 1877: first and last use of dissolution

This prerogative, fundamental in a parliamentary system, was only used once under the Third Republic, during the 16 May 1877 crisis, by President Mac Mahon. While the dissolution was in line with the letter and spirit of the Orleanist constitution, it was seen by the Republicans as an attempted coup d'état by the monarchists, as it followed the refusal of the chambers to invest governments chosen by the President of the Republic from the monarchist camp.

Thus "burdened with a hypothesis of anti-republicanism", dissolution, already frowned upon by the Republicans, was definitively abandoned by the Third Republic, and timidly reintroduced by the Fourth. On 6 February 1879, the new President Jules Grévy, in his message to the Chambers thanking him for his election as President of the Republic on 30 January of the same year, famously said: "I will never enter into a struggle against the national will expressed by its constitutional organs."

Henceforth, with a majority Republican Senate since 5 January 1879, and a Republican presidency, the right of dissolution fell into oblivion, so radically altering the interpretation of the constitution that it became known as the "Grévy constitution". Without the protection of dissolution, the government found itself constantly abused by both houses of parliament, and the instability of the Third Republic found its roots there.

After 1918, in the face of the regime's profound crisis, French constitutional thinkers sometimes proposed to reintroduce dissolution into political practice, by freeing it from the Senate's assent and, in certain projects, entrusting it to the President of the Council: for example, Gaston Doumergue's project to reform the State. The proposed reforms were never adopted.

During the Fourth Republic

Dissolution in the April draft constitution

The first constitutional draft drawn up by the First Constituent Assembly included two hypotheses for dissolution. Firstly, Article 84 of the draft provided for a mechanism roughly equivalent to that of Article 51 of the 1946 constitution, where the occurrence of two crises in the same annual session—under the conditions provided for by the constitution—could have resulted in the dissolution of the single chamber if half the legislature had already elapsed. This dissolution would have been decided by the Council of Ministers, and ordered by decree of the President of the Republic. Moreover, as in the definitive text, dissolution by the Government would, at the same time, have led to its total disappearance, whereas the definitive constitution will only dismiss the President of the Council and the Minister of the Interior.

The most original procedure was that set out in Article 83 of the draft:

The National Assembly has the right to pronounce its dissolution by a resolution voted by a two-thirds majority of the deputies. —Article 83 of the draft constitution of April 19, 1946.

This procedure would have amounted, for the Assembly, to seeking to put an end to its divisions by a large majority.

In both cases, an initiative for dissolution would have fallen, directly or indirectly, to the Chamber alone: the right to dissolve was in no way seen as a means for the Government to protect itself from the Chamber.

Maintaining a binding procedure in the final constitution

Dissolution of the National Assembly only, not of the Council of the Republic, is provided for in two articles:

If, during the same eighteen-month period, two ministerial crises occur under the conditions provided for in Articles 49 and 50, the dissolution of the National Assembly may be decided by the Council of Ministers, after consultation with the President of the Assembly. The dissolution will be pronounced, in accordance with this decision, by decree of the President of the Republic.

The provisions of the preceding paragraph only apply to the expiry of the first eighteen months of the legislature.

—Article 51 of the 1946 Constitution.

In the event of dissolution, the Cabinet, with the exception of the President of the Council and the Minister of the Interior, remains in office to expedite current affairs.

The President of the Republic appoints the President of the National Assembly as President of the Council. The latter appoints the new Minister of the Interior in agreement with the Bureau of the National Assembly. He appoints members of groups not represented in the government as ministers of state.

General elections are held at least twenty days and at most thirty days after the dissolution.

The National Assembly meets by right on the third Thursday following its election.

—Article 52 of the 1946 Constitution.

A highly complex procedure

René Coty, the first president to sign a decree dissolving a chamber elected since 1877.

In reaction to the excesses of the Third Republic, which had been partly made possible by the de facto disappearance of the right of dissolution after the crisis of 16 May 1877, the 1946 Constituent Assembly, whether in the draft constitution of April, rejected by referendum, or in the accepted draft constitution of October, provided for dissolution.

However, this was not a discretionary power of dissolution for the Head of State, as in the constitutional laws of 1875. Dissolution is the prerogative of the Council of Ministers, which exercises it under two conditions: at least two ministerial crises must have occurred under the conditions of Articles 49 and 50 of the Constitution, during the same eighteen-month period, and the period must be beyond the first eighteen months of the legislature. What we have here is a "technical refinement" of dissolution, but also a genuine, almost automatic "mechanism" that has nothing in common with traditional parliamentary dissolution, which is the counterweight to government responsibility.

It should also be noted that dissolution is a unique weapon of mutual annihilation: dissolving the National Assembly obliges the President of the Council to leave office, and to be replaced by the President of the dissolved Assembly. The Constituents feared that the retention of the President of the Council who had dissolved the Chamber would influence the forthcoming elections. This provision shows that dissolution is not conceived here as a way of putting an end to the conflict between the government and the Chamber but as a way of getting the National Assembly out of an inextricable situation, where no majority could be found.

A mechanism incapable of putting an end to ministerial instability

The highly mechanical nature of dissolution has had one major drawback: the government is, in reality, defenseless against the moods of the Chamber, since it can only dissolve if very specific conditions are met. In practice, these conditions render dissolution useless.

The institutional practice inherited from the Third Republic soon took over: governments lacked the courage to stand up to the National Assembly, while the constitutional mechanisms of censure were not used. In particular, the "vote of confidence", which is constitutionally framed, was rarely raised by the President of the Council, who preferred simply to warn that, if the Assembly did not vote as he requested, he would resign. This "pseudo-question of confidence" makes it impossible to count the fall of the government, even though it was provoked by the Chamber, in the ministerial crises of Article 51.

The National Assembly used the "calibrated vote" method to refuse confidence with a smaller majority than that provided for by the constitution, to show the government that it disavowed it, without the fall provoked being counted. In this case, the weight of the tradition of the Third Republic, the weight of custom, can be seen.

Thus hijacked, the constitution, which was already unconcerned, no longer protected the government. Despite record ministerial instability—twenty-four governments in eleven years, with increasingly long periods of crisis between two governments, up to a month to form a new team—only one dissolution took place, on 1 December 1955 when Edgar Faure was President of the Council.

Table summarizing the use of dissolution before the Fifth Republic

Summary table of dissolutions prior to 1958

Date of dissolution	Author of dissolution	New elections	Legislature		Name of dissolved chamber	Reference
			Previous (election date)	New
Restoration (1815–1830)
13 July 1815	Louis XVIII, King of France	14 and 28 August 1815	House of the Hundred Days (May 1815)	The "Chambre introuvable" (1st legislature)	Chamber of Representatives
5 September 1816		25 September and 4 October 1816	"Chambre introuvable" (1815)	2nd legislature	Chamber of Deputies
24 December 1823		25 February and 6 March 1824	3rd Legislature (1820)	4th legislature ("Chambre retrouvée")
5 November 1827	Charles X, King of France	17th and 24 November 1827	4th legislature (1824)	5th legislature
16 May 1830		5, 13 and 19 July 1830	5th legislature (1827)	(6th legislature) First legislature of the July Monarchy
25 July 1830		None	6th legislature (1830)	None
July Monarchy (1830–1848)
31 May 1831	Louis-Philippe I, King of the French	5 July 1831	First legislature (1830)	2nd legislature	Chamber of Deputies
25 May 1834		21 June 1834	2nd legislature (1831)	3rd Legislature
3 October 1837		4 November 1837	3rd legislature (1834)	4th legislature
2 February 1839		2 and 6 March 1839	4th legislature (1837)	5th legislature
13 June 1842		9 July 1842	5th legislature (1839)	6th Legislature
6 July 1846		1 August 1846	6th legislature (1842)	7th legislature
Second Republic (1848–1852)
24 February 1848	Provisional government	23rd and 24 April 1848	7th Legislature of the July Monarchy (1846)	National Constituent Assembly	Chamber of Deputies
Second Empire (1852–1870)
29 May 1857	Napoleon III, Emperor of the French	21 June and 5 July 1857	1st Legislature (1852)	2nd legislature	Legislative body
Third Republic (1870–1940)
4 September 1870	Government of National Defense	8 February 1871	3rd legislature (1869)	National Constituent Assembly	Legislative body
25 June 1877	Patrice de Mac-Mahon, President of the French Republic	14 and 28 October 1877	First Legislature (1876)	2nd legislature	Chamber of Deputies
Fourth Republic (1946–1958)
1 December 1955	Edgar Faure government	2 January 1956	2nd Parliament (1951)	3rd legislature	National Assembly
Notes
The July 1830 chamber—which was immediately dissolved by the king before even convening—should have been the sixth legislature of the Restoration. After the dissolution order was declared null and void following the July 1830 revolution, the chamber elected in July met and became the first legislature of the July Monarchy. The July 1830 revolution prevented the elections from taking place, and the Saint-Cloud ordinances—including the one dissolving the Chamber—were subsequently declared null and void. Strictly speaking, this was not a parliamentary dissolution in the traditional sense of the term: in the context of the 1848 revolution, the provisional government decided to convene a constituent assembly, elected by universal male suffrage. It therefore needed to dissolve the previous chamber to do so—but the dissolution was thus made outside the functioning of the regime provided for by the 1830 Charter. As was the case during the 1848 revolution, the provisional government appointed following the proclamation of the Republic dissolved the entire parliament (upper and lower houses) outside constitutional rules. Strictly speaking, this was not a parliamentary dissolution. These elections did not follow the dissolution of 1870, but a request from the German Empire, which was occupying the country. The dissolution was followed by the crisis of 16 May 1877.

During the Fifth Republic

The mechanism of dissolution under the 1958 Constitution

Michel Debré, Keeper of the Seals in 1958, one of the main drafters of the 1958 Constitution.

The right of dissolution is provided for in Article 12 of the Constitution:

The President of the Republic may, after consultation with the Prime Minister and the presidents of the Assemblies, dissolve the National Assembly.

General elections are held at least twenty days and at most forty days after the dissolution.

The National Assembly shall meet as of right on the second Thursday following its election. If this meeting takes place outside the period set aside for the ordinary session, a session is automatically opened for a period of fifteen days.

A new dissolution may not be carried out in the year following these elections.

—Article 12 of the 1958 Constitution.

This is an extremely simple mechanism, in contrast to that adopted in the 1946 Constitution: it is a "quasi-discretionary competence" of the President of the Republic: the only constitutional obligations are prior consultation with the Prime Minister and the two presidents of the parliamentary chambers, who give a purely consultative opinion. The exercise of the right of dissolution is one of the prerogatives exempt from ministerial countersignature (article 19 of the Constitution).

There are, however, three relatively important limitations:

• The President may not dissolve the National Assembly while exercising the exceptional powers provided for in article 16 of the Constitution;
• Dissolution is also prohibited when the President of the Senate is acting President of the Republic (Article 7 of the Constitution);
• The President may not dissolve the National Assembly again during the year following a dissolution: this is a translation of the adage "dissolution upon dissolution is worthless", born of the double dissolution of 1830 attempted by Charles X.

Only the National Assembly can be dissolved, not the Senate: only the National Assembly can overthrow the Government, and therefore only the Senate can be dissolved. The balance of the regime is parliamentary on paper, with the right to overthrow the government balanced by the right to dismiss the chamber. Although unlike most other parliamentary regimes, in France this right of dissolution is in the President's hands and not the Prime Minister, which leads some writers to prefer the description of a semi-presidential regime.

A modified dissolution in the face of the failure of the Fourth Republic

Proposals to modify dissolution in the 1946 constitution

As early as the Fourth Republic, undermined by ministerial instability, the removal of all obstacles to dissolution had its supporters, notably Paul Reynaud and Edgar Faurem, since it was clear that the complex mechanism created by the 1946 constitution did nothing to prevent the fall of one government after another. René Mayer also proposed granting the President of the Council alone the unconditional right to dissolve the National Assembly, to give the lower house pause for thought during votes of no-confidence.

The final period of the regime was marked by thoughtful proposals to improve and even transform the constitution. Georges Vedel wrote reports advocating the introduction of a presidential system: in his view, the main cause of the instability of the French system was the fragmentation of the political field into a myriad of small parties. Any attempt at constitutional reform could only come up against this stumbling block, which in itself made majorities unstable and governments fragile.

In 1958, the final year of the Fourth Republic, two proposals for constitutional revision were put forward, one by Félix Gaillard (16 January 1958), the other by Pierre Pflimlin (22 May 1958), while both were President of the Council. The Gaillard draft, in particular, proposed two hypotheses for dissolution in the new wording of Article 51:

• The President of the Council could have proposed to the Council of Ministers to dissolve the National Assembly at any time, except when the government had been overthrown;
• The President of the Republic, when two ministerial crises had occurred in eighteen months, or when no government had succeeded in being invested by the Chamber, could have decided alone to dissolve the National Assembly to resolve the crisis.

On 21 March 1958, the National Assembly passed the Gaillard project, with substantial modifications. The Council of the République was seized of the matter but did not have time to give its opinion before the crisis of May 1958.

The drafting of the constitution

On 13 May 1958, the coup d'État in Algiers put an abrupt end to these attempts at revision, which had nevertheless been adopted by the National Assemblye. The constitutional law of 3 June 1958 set up a special revision procedure, entrusting Charles de Gaulle's government with the task of drafting the future constitution. Secundo and tertio of the law's sole article, in particular, provide that:

Executive and legislative power must be effectively separated so that the Government and Parliament each assume for their part and under its responsibility the fullness of their attributions; The Government must be accountable to Parliament.

On this basis, during the drafting phase, the government drew inspiration from the fertile constitutional debate that had been going on since the interwar period. As far as the right of dissolution was concerned, the draft was hardly original: it was definitively freed of any hindrance, thus implementing a reform that had been proposed many times. As early as 13 June 1958, General de Gaulle told the newly-formed inter-ministerial committee that the right of dissolution should belong to the Head of State and that he should be able to use it unconditionally. Among the articles drafted by the President of the Republic on 23 June 1958, article 9 contained the identical first clause of the current article 12. The preliminary draft constitution, prepared by the government assisted by two bodies, contains, almost identical to the final article, the provisions concerning dissolution:

The President of the Republic may, after consultation with the Prime Minister and the presidents of the Assemblies, dissolve the National Assembly.

General elections are held at least twenty days and at most forty days after the dissolution.

The National Assembly convenes automatically on the third Thursday following its election.

No new dissolution may be carried out in the year following the election.

Article 10 of the preliminary draft constitution.

The Comité consultatif constitutionnel hardly modified the article. Generally speaking, in the Cabinet meetings of 23 and 25 July 1958, or before the Consultative Committee or the Council of State, dissolution, as proposed from the outset, met with no resistance.

A fully parliamentary dissolution

Michel Debré, in his speech to the Conseil d'État on 27 August 1958, when presenting the preliminary draft, reviewed by the Consultative Committee, explicitly states that: "The government wanted to renovate the parliamentary system. I would even be tempted to say that it wants to establish it because, for many reasons, the Republic has never succeeded in establishing it."

Here, the Keeper of the Seals emphasizes the parliamentary nature of the new institutions, in which he was particularly involved. Later in the speech, he returns to the subject of dissolution:

Is it necessary to emphasize the importance of dissolution? It is the instrument of governmental stability. It can be the reward for a government that appears to have succeeded or the sanction for a government that appears to have failed. It enables a brief dialogue between the head of state and the nation, which can resolve a conflict or allow the voice of the people to be heard at a decisive moment.

This "parliamentary interpretation" of the 1958 Constitution, which was to be strongly qualified by the facts, was shared by most of those involved in the drafting process, which explains why there was little resistance to the introduction of certain presidential powers, such as dissolution, which was, in short, no more than a power of institutional arbitration.

Thus, dissolution was originally seen as one of the tools of the "rationalized parliamentarism" introduced by the Fifth Republic. It was the necessary counterpart to government accountability, and functioned at the discretion of the President of the Republic, as arbiter of the regular functioning of public powers.

Dissolution practices under the Fifth Republic

Summary of the use of dissolution under the Fifth Republic

Dissolution decree	President of the Republic	Dissolved Assembly	New Assembly
		Legislature	Legislature	Elections
10 October 1962	Charles de Gaulle	First Legislature	2nd legislature	18 and 25 November 1962
30 May 1968	Charles de Gaulle	3rd legislature	4th legislature	23rd and 30 June 1968
22 May 1981	François Mitterrand	5th Legislature	7th Legislature	14 and 21 June 1981
14 May, 1988	François Mitterrand	8th Legislature	9th Legislature	5 and 12 June 1988
21 April, 1997	Jacques Chirac	10th Legislature	11th Legislature	25 May and 1 June 1997
9 June 2024	Emmanuel Macron	16th Legislature	17th Legislature	30 June and 7 July 2024

President de Gaulle's two dissolutions

Charles de Gaulle, first President of the Fifth Republic

During his ten-year presidency, Charles de Gaulle used dissolution twice: in 1962 and 1968.

The 1962 dissolution, typically parliamentary

The very first dissolution of the Fifth Republic perfectly embodied the parliamentary theory of the right of dissolution, which makes the people the arbiter of conflict between the executive and the legislature. On 5 October 1962, the National Assembly, in application of Article 50 of the Constitution, overthrew the Georges Pompidou government. The President of the Republic, Charles de Gaulle, refused to give in and dissolved the Assembly on 9 October 1962, appealing to the judgment of the country.

It was a resounding victory, with the 1962 legislative elections giving an absolute majority to Gaullist candidates. The conflict between the lower house and the government was thus resolved to the advantage of the government, which was reappointed.

The dissolution of 1968

The dissolution of 30 May 1968 was not the result of a political crisis – Parliament was supporting the Pompidou government at the time—but of a national crisis. For the electorate, the issue was less one of arbitrating a conflict between the legislature and the executive, than of renewing or not renewing its confidence in the President of the Republic, Charles de Gaulle. In this sense, we can speak of a "referendum dissolution" or a "plebiscitary dissolution".

General de Gaulle himself interpreted this dissolution as a referendum in disguise.

Conclusion

The two dissolutions ordered by Charles de Gaulle are unusual in that, on each occasion, the President of the Republic put a sort of "question of confidence" to the electorate: a refusal to elect the requested majority would have led to the President's resignation, as happened following the 1969 referendum. In theory, the President of the Republic in France, who also has the initiative in this matter, cannot be affected by the outcome of the election.

In a way, putting his responsibility at stake on the occasion of a dissolution attenuates for the President the monarchical appearance of the right of dissolution under the Fifth Republic, whose operation is that of the two charters of the nineteenth century, by bringing the use of this right closer to the classic parliamentary system. None of Charles de Gaulle's successors took up this right again, allowing France to experience its first cohabitation in 1986.

The absence of dissolution under Pompidou and Giscard

Neither Georges Pompidou nor Valéry Giscard d'Estaing used their right to dissolve the National Assembly. However, President Giscard d'Estaing repeatedly brandished the threat of dissolution, to maintain the cohesion of a capricious parliamentary majority, the 1978 legislative elections having created a double majority, supported by the RPR and the UDF. The instability of this majority came to the fore in 1979, when the Barre government had to resort six times to Article 49, paragraph 3, to pass the budget.

François Mitterrand's dissolutions

François Mitterrand, first Socialist President of the Fifth Republic.

The two dissolutions carried out by François Mitterrand (in 1981 and 1988) took place in identical contexts: elected, then re-elected to the presidency of the Republic, François Mitterrand was faced with a National Assembly whose majority was hostile to him.

The election of the President by universal suffrage was the main cause of these two dissolutions: elected on a political program by the entire electorate, the President could not be content with the effete and minimal role to which a hostile majority would have confined him.

The 1981 context

During the televised debate between himself and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on 5 May 1981, the future president made his position very clear:

I intend to dissolve and I intend to hold elections before July 1st. If there were a major argument against this, my decision would be maintained in any case, by which I mean that I would not be able to keep this Assembly, and the problem, for me, would be to have a majority, because we cannot conduct another policy without another majority.

François Mitterrand was elected President of the Republic on 10 May 1981. The dissolution of the National Assembly, along with the appointment of a new Prime Minister, Pierre Mauroy, to form a government, was one of the first decisions taken when he took office on 21 May 1981. Following the parliamentary elections of 14 and 21 June 1981, Mitterrand confirmed Pierre Mauroy as Prime Minister and formed a new government (including several Communist ministers).

The 1988 context

Each time, the result was favorable to President Mitterrand, who obtained a left-wing majority. However, the 1988 elections brought a relative majority that proved difficult to manage. This explains the massive use of section 3 of Article 49 of the Constitution by the governments of this legislature, and especially by Michel Rocard's government.

The dissolution of 1988 was therefore not as successful as that of 1981, and showed that there was a risk of the President's disavowal—this risk would materialize at the next dissolution, in 1997.

Jacques Chirac's dissolution

Jacques Chirac, the last president to order a dissolution of the French lower house during a seven-year term.

On 21 April 1997, Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic for almost two years, dissolved the National Assembly, elected in 1993. The majority of its members were RPR-UDF-miscellaneous right and of the same political persuasion as Chirac (Jacques Chirac had headed the Union pour la France list, and had himself been re-elected as an RPR deputy that year).

On 17 May 1995, Jacques Chirac, elected President of the Republic on the previous 7 May, took office and appointed Alain Juppé as Prime Minister. The number of women in the government was almost unprecedented, and personalities such as Jacques Toubon, Alain Madelin, and François Bayrou, who had been ministers in the Balladur government, remained in Alain Juppé's. Chirac refused to dissolve the National Assembly, arguing that "no political crisis would have justified such a decision". However, although the chamber elected in 1993 had an overwhelming right-wing majority, this majority was not that of the president-elect, and it supported him poorly. Adjustments and reshuffles took place on 20 May and 26 August 1995. The second Juppé government was formed on 7 November of the same year, with 8 of the first Juppé government's 12 female ministers ousted, along with government spokesman François Baroin.

The decision to dissolve the National Assembly was taken on Sunday, 9 February 1997, during a meeting at the Élysée Palace with Jacques Chirac, Dominique de Villepin, Secretary General of the Presidency, Alain Juppé, Prime Minister and Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, Chief of Staff. These four men were aware that the Government budget, which estimates public deficits for 1997 at 3.8% of GDP (above the 3% required by the Maastricht Treaty), obliges them to cut public spending, which could prevent the presidential majority from winning the legislative elections scheduled for March 1998. A cabinet reshuffle was out of the question, so they opted to bring forward the legislative elections in the hope of consolidating their majority and passing unpopular austerity decisions afterward.

On 17 April 1997, faced with forecasts of a deepening deficit and polls showing that the RPR-UDF majority held only a slim advantage in seats over the left, Chirac convened his "private council" to take the decision. On the eve of the announcement of the dissolution, Lionel Jospin, leader of the Plural Left, was a guest on TF1's 7 sur 7. In his view, early elections would be "an admission of failure" for the President of the Republic.

On the evening of 21 April 1997, in a radio and television address, Jacques Chirac announced the dissolution of the National Assembly and the holding of early legislative elections on 25 May and 1 June.

The 1997 legislative elections resulted in a left-wing majority in the National Assembly, formed by the Gauche plurielle (PS, PCF, Verts, MDC, PRG and Miscellaneous left). President Jacques Chirac appointed Lionel Jospin Prime Minister. A period of cohabitation between Chirac and a left-wing government began, lasting 4 years and 11 months until May 2002.

Taken late, the decision to dissolve the National Assembly in 1997, a year before the normal end of the legislature, was akin to a "dissolution for personal convenience". For the President, it was a matter of choosing the best moment to obtain the desired majority, similar to the practice in the United Kingdom, before the 2011 reform, where the Prime Minister chooses the most appropriate moment to provoke the election. However, it should be emphasized here that, although the 1997 dissolution may have been described as an "English-style dissolution", the spirit could only have been different, since President Chirac did not link his continued office to the outcome of the election.

Almost three decades without a dissolution

The simultaneity of presidential and parliamentary elections following the introduction of the five-year presidential term in 2000 made the return of a discordance between presidential and parliamentary majorities unlikely, except in the event of an unforeseeable accident such as the death or resignation of the president. Future presidents of the Republic are assured of solid and devoted majorities, as they are elected directly after them, and will have little opportunity to use their right to dissolve the National Assembly.

The possibility of a "tactical" dissolution has, however, been raised several times by the press, without going beyond the stage of rumor and/or prospective reflection (in 2014, under the presidency of François Hollande as early as autumn 2022 concerning Emmanuel Macron).

Emmanuel Macron's dissolution

Emmanuel Macron, the first president to order a dissolution in a five-year term.

Even before the start of the 2022 legislature, the hypothesis of dissolution is on everyone's mind to deal with the absence of a total majority by the non-majority coalition, particularly in the event of a motion of censure.

On the evening of 9 June 2024, shortly after the results of the European elections were published with the Rassemblement National in the lead with 31.4% of the vote (more than twice as many as the presidential majority list, which came second with 14.6%), Emmanuel Macron announced that he was dissolving the National Assembly and calling the French people to early legislative elections on 30 June and 7 July 2024. The President's decision came as a surprise to commentators, including within the presidential majority.

The dissolution suspends several parliamentary works in progress, both bills (on the end of life, on public broadcasting) and commissions of inquiry (on sexual violence in the film industry, child protection, the A69 freeway).

The decree stipulates that nominations must be submitted by Sunday 16 June 2024, one week after the announcement of the dissolution.

The very short period of twenty days between the announcement of the dissolution and the election is a record under the Fifth Republic. This deadline is the limit set by the Constitution. As a result, appeals are lodged with the Constitutional Council to obtain its annulment

The dissolution triggered a political hurricane in France, with the New Popular Front, an alliance of left-wing parties on the one hand, and many Les Républicains and Rassemblement National deputies on the other.

The Rassemblement National and its allies won the first round of these elections with 33.15% of the vote.

See also

• Parliamentary system
• Dissolution of parliament
• Motion of no confidence

Notes

• Chevallier, Jean-Jacques (2001). Histoire des institutions et des régimes politiques de la France de 1789 à 1958. Paris: éd. Armand Colin.

Bibliography

Anthologies

• Cointet, Jean-Paul (1992). "L'écriture de la constitution de 1958 : le poids de l'histoire". In Maus, Didier; Favoreu, Louis; Parodi, Jean-Luc (eds.). L'écriture de la constitution de 1958 : Actes du colloque du XXXe anniversaire, Aix-en-Provence, 8, 9, 10 septembre 1988. Paris: Economica. ISBN 2717823549.
• Maus, Didier (1992). "L'institution présidentielle dans l'écriture de la constitution de 1958". In Maus, Didier; Favoreu, Louis; Parodi, Jean-Luc (eds.). L'écriture de la constitution de 1958 : Actes du colloque du XXXe anniversaire, Aix-en-Provence, 8, 9, 10 septembre 1988. Paris: Economica. pp. 267–268. ISBN 2717823549.

Monographies

• Ardant, Philippe (2003). Institutions politiques & Droit constitutionnel (15th ed.). Paris: LGDJ. ISBN 2275023720.
• Chevallier, Jean-Jacques (2001). Histoire des institutions et des régimes politiques de la France de 1789 à 1958 (9th ed.). Paris: Armand Collin. ISBN 2247045286.
• Morabito, Marcel (2004). Histoire constitutionnelle de la France (1789-1958) (8th ed.). Paris: Montchrestien. ISBN 2707613894.
• Morabito, Marcel (2004). Histoire constitutionnelle de la France (1789–1958). Paris: éd. Montchrestien.

Articles

• "Le projet de révision de Félix Gaillard : Exposé des motifs et projet de loi". Pouvoirs. 1996.
• "Discours de Michel Debré devant le Conseil d'État (27 août 1958)". Constitution française du 4 octobre 1958. 1 (4). Paris: 25–31. 2008. ISBN 9782110074676.
• Goguel, François (1956). "Vers une nouvelle orientation de la révision constitutionnelle". Revue française de science politique. 6 (3): 493–507. doi:10.3406/rfsp.1956.402705.
• Goguel, François (1959). "L'élaboration des institutions de la République dans la constitution du 4 octobre 1958". Revue française de science politique. 9 (1): 67–86. doi:10.3406/rfsp.1959.402984.
• Zarka, Jean-Claude (1997). Les dissolutions sous la Ve République. Paris: La Documentation française.

Complementary works

• Comité nationale chargé de la publication des travaux préparatoires des institutions de la Ve République. Documents pour servir à l'histoire de l'élaboration de la constitution du 4 octobre 1958. Paris: La Documentation française. 1987–1988:
  • Des origines de la loi constitutionnelle du 3 juin 1958 à l'avant-projet du 29 juillet 1958. Vol. I.
  • Le Comité consultatif constitutionnel, De l'avant-projet du 29 juillet 1958 au projet du 21 août 1958. Vol. II.
  • Du Conseil d'État au référendum, 20 août-28 septembre 1958. Vol. III.
• Albertini, Pierre (1978). "Le droit de dissolution et les systèmes constitutionnels français". Publications de l'Université de Rouen (43). Paris – via Presses universitaires de France.