French Politics, Society and Culture
3 total works
Gaffney analyzes how de Gaulle came to power in 1958: The drama surrounding the Fourth Republic's collapse, and the focus upon an exceptional individual meant that de Gaulle was able to confer a particular style of leadership on the Fifth Republic. The five Presidents who came after him have each capitalized on their own political 'persona.'
This volume brings together French and British scholars of France to analyse one of French politics' most intellectually compelling phenomena, the presidency of the republic. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of that leadership as well as the way that executive power has been established in the Fifth Republic; how presidential power and the subsequent full scale development of 'personality politics' developed within an essentially party-driven, democratic and, most importantly, republican system. Hence the authors in this volume examine the phenomenon of a strong presidency in the French republican framework. The individual chapters focus on the presidency and upon the individual presidents and the way in which they have addressed their own relation to the presidencies they presided over on top of a range of other factors informing their terms of office. A conclusion sums up and appraises the contemporary role of the French presidency within the party system and the republic. The project has generated a great deal of interest in the French political studies community.
Through an analysis of the first half of Francois Hollande's five-year presidential term, this study examines the strengths and weaknesses of presidential politics following the Left's return to power in 2012 and puts forward an interpretation of the underlying nature of contemporary French politics, and the Fifth Republic itself. The analysis demonstrates that the Fifth Republic is dysfunctional, because of the manner in which political observers and actors have understood or failed to understand this singular republic and its performative requirements. The book examines how Francois Hollande, as President, acted 'out of category', and what the first half of the five-year term - up until the creation of the Valls government, the European Elections, the publication of Valerie Trierweiler's book in 2014, and the return to frontline politics of Nicolas Sarkozy - tells us about the nature of the Fifth Republic.