PARIS — Nearly 50 years after the creation of the Fifth Republic by Gen. Charles de Gaulle, French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to change France's fundamental institutions. An expert council will send him its proposals by Nov. 1.
Whereas British democracy is deeply rooted despite its supposedly "unwritten" constitution, and the U.S. Constitution has been amended only 26 times since 1787, France has redrafted its constitution 15 times since 1789. Only the Third Republic (1875-1940) lasted longer than the current Fifth Republic.
Established quickly in 1958 by de Gaulle in the midst of the Algerian crisis, the institutions of the Fifth Republic came under fire from the very first day. The antagonism that much of the left felt toward the Fifth Republic, which was tailored to fit de Gaulle's outsized figure, faded only in 1981, when Francois Mitterrand, one of de Gaulle's most vocal opponents, benefited from the power vested in the presidency.