COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS Series Editor…978-1-349-22102-8/1.pdf · COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS Series Editor: Vincent Wright Published Rod Hague, Martin Harrop

COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS Series Editor: Vincent Wright

Published

Rod Hague, Martin Harrop and Shaun Breslin Comparative Government and Politics (3rd edition)

Neill Nugent The Government and Politics of the European Community (2nd edition)

Anne Stevens The Government and Politics of France

Stephen White, John Gardner, George Schopflin and Tony Saich Communist and Postcommunist Political Systems: An Introduction (3rd edition)

Forthcoming

Rudy Andeweg and Galen A. Irwin Dutch Politics

Nigel Bowles American Government and Politics

Paul Heywood The Government and Politics of Spain

Robert Leonardi Government and Politics in Italy

Douglas Webber The Government and Politics of Germany

Also published by Macmillan Education

DEVELOPMENTS IN FRENCH POLITICS

Edited by Peter A. Hall, Jack Hayward and Howard Machin

Bringing together specially commissioned chapters by leading authorities in each field, with an extensive up-to-date bibliography and guide to further reading, Developments in French Politics provides an up-to-date analysis of the changing political scene in France. Concentrating on recent developments and trends, the book provides comprehensive coverage of the political and governmental system; of economic, social, foreign and defence policies; and of key current issues and controversies.

The Governtnent and Politics of France

Anne Stevens

M MACMILLAN

© Anne Stevens 1992

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WlP 9HE.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published 1992 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

ISBN 978-0-333-51486-3 ISBN 978-1-349-22102-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22102-8

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copy-edited and typeset by Povey-Edmondson Okehampton and Rochdale, England

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For Helen

Contents

List of Tables, Figures, Exhibits and Maps

Priface

Acknowledgements

The regions and dipartements of France

Part I Historical and Constitutional Fra111ework

France: An Introduction 2 The Constitutional Framework

Part D The GoveJ"DJDental SysteJD

3 The Presidency 4 The Governmental Machine 5 The Administrative System in France 6 Local Government

Part m De~nocratic Politics in France

IX

Xlll

XV

XVI

3 31

59 94

118 141

7 Parliament 167 8 The Nature of Party Politics in France 194 9 Parties, Voters and Elections 222

10 The State and Civil Society: Pressure and Interest Groups 254

Vll

vm Contents

Part IV Public Policy: A Case Study

II The Shaping of Public Policy: France and the European Community

Notes

Further Reading

Bibliography

Index

285

302

310

313

321

List of Tables, Figures, Exhibits and Maps

Tables

l.l Support for the Fourth Republic 25 4.1 Party composition of selected Fifth Republic

governments llO 5.1 Public service employment in selected West European

countries 122 6.1 Local government staff on I January 1990 159 6.2 Local government revenue 162 7 .I Occupations of members of Parliament 173 9.1 Issues which influenced voting decisions in the 1988

presidential election 249 9.2 Age, sex and voting behaviour in the 1988

presidential election 251 9.3 The political balance in France 1992 253

Figures

3.1 Public confidence in President Mitterrand 92 8.1 Overlapping cleavages and the multi-party system 197 9.1 Votes and parliamentary seats taken by the Gaullists

and their allies 1958-88 224 9.2 Votes and parliamentary seats taken by the Left

1958-88 234

Exhibits

I . I The Dreyfus affair 1.2 Regimes in France since 1789

IX

12 15

X Tables, Figures, Exhibits and Maps

1.3 Prime Ministers of the Provisional Government and the Fourth Republic 24

2.1 Charles de Gaulle 1890-1970 35 2.2 Extracts from Charles de Gaulle's speech at Bayeux

16 June 1946 38 2.3 The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

1789 41 2.4 The structure of the constitution of the Fifth Republic 43 2.5 The Economic and Social Council 44 3.1 The Presidents of the Fifth Republic 60 3.2 Presidential Powers in the Constitution of the Fifth

Republic 65 3.3 Presidential press conferences 71 3.4 The Canal case 80 3.5 Type and number of decisions of the Constitutional

Council to I January 1989 81 3.6 Referendums in the Fifth Republic 86 4.1 The Prime Ministers of the Fifth Republic 97 4.2 The French government in May 1991 108 5.1 Grands corps and grandes icoles 124 6.1 Extent of co-operation between communes 144 6.2 Mayors 145 6.3 National and local electoral systems 151 7.1 The committees of Parliament 177 7.2 The powers of Parliament 179 7.3 Use of Article 49, paragraph 3 181 7.4 Private members' bill (propositions de loi) passed 184 7.5 Electronic voting 185 8.1 Maurice Duverger's analysis of "overlapping

cleavages" 197 8.2 Electoral systems in France since 1945 200 8.3 Poujadism 209 8.4 The two-ballot system 218 8.5 The results of the presidential and parliamentary

elections 1988 9.1 Jean-Marie Le Pen 247

10.1 La vie associative 257 10.2 Trade unions in France 261 10.3 May 1968 268

Tables, Figures, Exhibits and Maps XI

Map

6.1 The dipartements of France 147

Preface

Early in the 1950s my parents tired of summer holidays mostly spent on chilly wind-swept beaches and embarked, with hire car, tents, and four young children, on what was, in the lingering climate of post­war austerity, a still unusual adventure - a tour through France. I still recall the vivid realisation, as the ferry approached Calais, that France looked different, and the even sharper shock of discovering that it really did sound different too. That journey took us from Calais to the Spanish border, and back along the Mediterranean coast. When the family turned towards the Channel again my twin sister and I stayed behind, to spend a further few weeks near Nimes, in the Ardeche and in Marseilles with the French family with whom we had been corresponding.

That summer left its mark on both my twin and me. It was for both of us the start of a continuing interest in and affection for the country and the first of many visits. For me it was a beginning that, twenty years later, led me, through many changes and chances, to the study of contemporary France. My sister came earlier to the subject, as an undergraduate in Philip Williams' lectures when the Fifth Republic was still quite young. She retains her connections with France and French people, nowadays through her chairmanship of the association that twins the Anglican cathedral of Manchester with the Roman Catholic basilica of St. Sermin in Toulouse. This book is dedicated to her.

The book is intended as a students' introduction to the study of French government and politics and also as a guide for general readers with an interest in French affairs. Teaching and research on aspects of French politics and administration have been at the centre of my working life for the past decade and a half, and I owe a great deal to the many colleagues, acquaintances and friends who make this area of study so congenial and stimulating. I should like

Xlll

x1v Priface

particularly to mention my gratitude to the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France, to the editors of Modern and Contemporary France and to the Maison Fran~aise at Oxford for all they do to make the study of contemporary France both pleasant and fruitful. Such merits as this book may have derive largely from successive generations of students on the course The Politics of the Nation State: France which I taught at the University of Sussex. I am grateful to them and to Nicholas Wrathall of the University of Kent at Canterbury, who read the first draft. Without Liz Davis, of the University of Sussex Computer Centre, much of the text could not have moved from Brighton to Canterbury with me. Chrissy Emms saw me through my first year in Canterbury.

I have accumulated many debts over the years I have worked in this field; as I look back I am particularly conscious of those to Dr Howard Machin, Dr John Gaffney, Professor Sian Reynolds, Dr Peter Holmes, and to Dr Clive Church and Professor Fran~oise Dreyfus, who both read the whole manuscript. My family, Hand­ley, Hilary, Lucy and Mary Stevens all believed in me and in the book even when progress seemed difficult. So did a patient and supportive publisher, Steven Kennedy. Without Vincent Wright there would have been no research, no teaching and no book at all. For the weaknesses and errors it contains I am alone responsible.

January 1992 ANNE STEVENS

Acknowledge~nents

The author and publishers wish to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material.

Simon & Schuster, for Exhibit 2.2. Larousse, for Figure 3.1. Methuen, for Figure 8.1. Frank Cass (West European Politics), for Exhibits 7.3 and 7.4. Longman, for Table 4.1. Economic a, for Table 7 .I. La Decouverte, for Tables 9.1, 9.2.

Every effort has been made to contact all the copyright-holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the earliest opportunity.

XV

• Region prefeciUre

Regional boundaries

The regions and departements of FraDce

XVI