Constitutionalism And Glory: De Gaulle’s Constitutional Reform In1958

Modern French history was known owing to it rough constitutional development. From1789up to now, France experienced five Republic, three Empire, not include some shortforms of government such as the Paris Commune. But the French romantic and perfectfeelings let them pursue the perfect modality of constitutional government with relentlesspassion, which form not only can achieve rule of law, freedom, democracy, but alsocontributing to the national Pride. However, in the pattern of the world after the " World WarII", as a country which once was occupied the capital by the old enemy, French not only haveto sweep the remnants of Vichy regime and re-establish the modern constitutional structurewhich can assure the rule of law, freedom, democracy, but also have an urgent mission toachieve the prosperities and the glories of France. But the Fourth Republic12year’s processshows that the Fourth Republic constitutional regime is a complete failure in achieving thesetwo goals.What is the reason that French is conduct constitutional reform in1958, break away frompredicament, and then gradually step on the road of steady development of constitutionalcivilization and great power status? According to the viewpoint of the historical materialism,the development of history is inevitable and follows the law. As in the first French Empireperiod, there was a man named Napoleon led the French to the brilliant acme although thebrilliant is very short, French historical inevitability of development determines Franceappeared De Gaulle in1958when his motherland was in crisis, even if De Gaulle didn’t standout, and there will be another one stand out which named De Gaulle, this is decided by theFrench national character and also the necessity of historical development of France. However,the development of history also has a fortuitous aspect, maybe only connect to this article; thehistorical materialism of inevitability is tenable. Therefore, no one can deny that if France in1958didn’t have the man named De Gaulle; French may be lost in confusion and struggledvery long period of time. Fortunately, France has its De Gaulle in1958. De Gaulle took hisconstitutional idea to change the fate of France, meanwhile changed the direction andprogress of world civilization of constitutionalism to a certain extent.Although the French Constitutional History is well-known: France established the fifthFrench Republic by De Gaulle and conducted the influential French constitutional reform in1958. However, the depth reason of history is not so simple and clear. At first, the establishment of the French Fifth Republic constitutional structure must have to face the casewhich overturned the Fourth Republic: Algeria trouble, if the new structure built by De Gaullecan not handle the hot potato, then the gigantic painted ship will become Titanic. It couldeven be said that, before the resolution of the Algeria issue, the Fifth Republic constitution didnot start to normal operation as it must to resolve the Algeria issue before at ease to apredetermined range. Historical process proof that De Gaulle ended the French’s Algerianightmare, meanwhile, in Algeria issue period, De Gaulle debugging the constitutionalstructure and the Algeria event on the new constitutional structure running make this newstructure became the Fifth Republic of France’s constitutional structure.Therefore, as De Gaulle has the typical French character, the author of this thesis will useDe Gaulle as the breakthrough viewpoint to know the antecedents and consequences ofFrench Fifth Republic constitutional structure; the author try to analyze the accidental factorsand necessary factors of the Fifth Republic of France ’s constitutional structure established byDe Gaulle. At the same time, the author through the comparison between the Fifth Republic’sconstitutional structure about president, government and parliament of their respective statusand mutual relationship and the Third, Fourth Republic of constitutional structure to analyze,discuss the features of Fifth Republic of France’s constitutional structure, and what is reasonlead to these features and the results these features to generate.