On The Causes Of The Defeat Of The Constitution Of The Fourth French Republic

In 1940, the French Third Republic collapsed because of Nazi Germany’s invasion. After the retrocession, the French people decided by a referendum to abandon the political system of the Third Republic and establish the Fourth Republic. French Fourth Republic existed from 1945 to 1957. In just twelve years, France has seen only two presidents but twenty three cabinets, whose longest tenure is sixteen months and the shortest is only one day. Political unrest led to the ultimate demise of the Fourth Republic in 1957.In order to research on the causes of the defeat of the Constitution of the French Fourth Republic, the main part of this thesis will focus on the following aspects:Firstly, the text of the Constitution of the French Fourth Republic is the most direct reflection of the constitutional system, thus the research on the cause of defeat starts with the text of the Constitution. The second chapter of the thesis analyses the parliament, the cabinet, the president and the relationships between each other, and clarifies the malformed constitutional structure, which put too much weight on the National Assembly.Secondly, after the analysis of the text, the third chapter takes a further step to the social cause of the defeat of the Constitution of the French Fourth Republic. It illustrates the multi‐party system of France and its influence to the function of the constitutional system. And it also analyzes the reason that the constitutional amendment failed to change the fate of the Constitution.Thirdly, the fourth chapter of the thesis focuses on the constitutional ideas of the constitution‐makers. France has a long and difficult history of revolution, thus the constitution‐makers had to take effort to prevent the reactionary from coming back. And the spreading of the popular democracy after the WWII also influenced greatly to the Constitution. However the over‐emphasizing of these ideas is the very reason that the Constitution’s failure.