By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Fifth Republic in France. It
is now the second-longest constitutional order in the country since the
1789 French Revolution.
It is surpassed only by the Third Republic, which lasted from 1870 until
the French defeat of 1940 in the Second World War.
The Fifth Republic was born amidst a profound crisis that destroyed the
ill-fated Fourth Republic.
The latter lasted little more than a decade, and collapsed due to the
vicious colonial wars France had been fighting in Indochina and Algeria.
The Fourth Republic’s weak parliamentary system had seen a revolving
door of prime ministers amidst political gridlock -- there were 21
administrations in its 12-year history.
Moreover, the government proved unable to make effective decisions
regarding the decolonization of the numerous remaining French colonies.
After a series of crises, most importantly the Algerian one of 1958, the
Fourth Republic collapsed.
In many ways the Algerian War, launched by the Front de Libération
Nationale in 1954, almost tore the nation apart.
Across the Mediterranean from metropolitan France, Algeria had, apart
from its indigenous Arab Muslim population of some 8.5 million, about a
million French settlers, known as pied-noirs.
They, of course, wanted to remain French, under the slogan Algérie
française.
Favourable to them, the French Army in Algeria slowly consolidated
power, and by May 1958 had complete control over the territory and were
on the verge of launching a coup d’état.
Fearing a military takeover of France itself, the government called
former general Charles de Gaulle, the hero of the Second World War, out
of retirement to hold the country together.
He now presided over a transitional administration that was empowered to
design a new French constitution.
The Fourth Republic was dissolved by a public referendum in 1958 which
established the modern-day Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency.
Under this semi-presidential form of government, the president has
substantial power, holds a term of five years and, following a change to
the constitution in 1962, is directly elected by the French people. (De
Gaulle held the position until 1968.)
Algeria eventually became independent on July 5, 1962, and virtually the
entire European population left thereafter.
De Gaulle was a military man who was ahead of his time. In the 1930s he
defied the strategic orthodoxy of the military high command by
advocating greater reliance on armoured divisions.
When France fell to Hitler’s armies in June 1940, de Gaulle escaped to
England, salvaging the country’s honour by creating the Free French
movement, rather than joining the defeatist Vichy regime of Marshal
Philppe Pétain.
On June 18 he broadcast an appeal to his compatriots on the BBC to
continue the struggle, vowing to kindle the “flame of resistance.”
Over the next four years, the exiled general became the symbol of the
French collective fight against the Germans.
The French turned to him again in 1958, and he once again saved the
republic.
Since de Gaulle, who left office in 1969, there have been seven French
presidents, of differing political ideologies, under the Fifth Republic.
Emmanuel Macron, the latest, was elected last year.
Finally, France has crafted a republican system that seems to work.
Now the nation’s most revered historical figure, de Gaulle has thousands
of streets, schools and public squares across France bearing his name.
Le général had saved the country twice.
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