The “Grévy Constitution” and the “de Gaulle Constitution”: Two Directions for the Relocation of Presidential Power in the Constitutional History of France

Abstract

The paper deals with two different political interpretations of presidential power under the Third and Fifth French Republics, which clearly changed the position of the head of state in relation to the letter of constitutional acts that were in force at the time. Both of these interpretations were imposed by the presidents in office in the first years after the proper structures of the system of government had been established. The former (commonly known as the “Grévy Constitution”) led to the weakening of presidential power, and the latter (described as the “de Gaulle Constitution”) to its strengthening. Particular attention is thus paid to the formation of such particular unwritten norms of constitutional law in rationalized and non-rationalized parliamentary systems. In both cases, their basic feature turned out to be the ability to significantly modify the parliamentary system of government. In the last part of the paper, the stability and durability of the above-mentioned political interpretations of the aforementioned Constitutions are discussed. It is indicated that, in both cases, there were attempts to challenge these non-codified standards. Although the causes of such actions were different from each other, neither brought any meaningful success. This article is an English translation of the paper published in Polish in Cracow Studies of Constitutional and Legal History in 2022. See: Jakubiak, “«Konstytucja Grévy’ego»i «konstytucja de Gaulle’a».”