I’ve often wondered what the status and role of the PM was in 5th Republic, so thanks to Mr Lichfield for shedding a little light on this for me; but he doesn’t answer the headline question – Does France need a Prime Minister? I think that it probably does, especially with M Macron as President, some-one needs to rein him in, but the sub headline should be – is Mm. Borne the woman to do it? If I were a French woman the profile in this article wouldn’t give me a lot of confidence that she was.
For a bit of history French presidents from 1871 on where basically Republican constitutional monarchs – as the 3rd Republic in 1871 was supposed to evolve into a British monarchy but never did due to the Legitimist and Orkeanist split. They were powerful figureheads. That’s why they used to serve 7 terms.
De Gaulle changed all that in the 5th due to the chaos of Algeria and parliamentary weakness, warping it into an American style executive president. But he didn’t abolish the Prime Minister for consistency, to keep the dignity and term length of the post and for dealing with mundane governmentslal business whilst he focused on foreign policy and le gloire.
I’ve often wondered what the status and role of the PM was in 5th Republic, so thanks to Mr Lichfield for shedding a little light on this for me; but he doesn’t answer the headline question – Does France need a Prime Minister? I think that it probably does, especially with M Macron as President, some-one needs to rein him in, but the sub headline should be – is Mm. Borne the woman to do it? If I were a French woman the profile in this article wouldn’t give me a lot of confidence that she was.
For a bit of history French presidents from 1871 on where basically Republican constitutional monarchs – as the 3rd Republic in 1871 was supposed to evolve into a British monarchy but never did due to the Legitimist and Orkeanist split. They were powerful figureheads. That’s why they used to serve 7 terms.
De Gaulle changed all that in the 5th due to the chaos of Algeria and parliamentary weakness, warping it into an American style executive president. But he didn’t abolish the Prime Minister for consistency, to keep the dignity and term length of the post and for dealing with mundane governmentslal business whilst he focused on foreign policy and le gloire.
Very interesting, thank-you.