List of political systems in France

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This is a chronological list of political systems in France, from Clovis (481 CE) to modern times. A series of different

began in 1958 and is the political system in France as of 2024.

Introduction

A

, and pre-date the existence of France.

Classical

For the purposes of this article, all political systems from Clovis on are considered to be in scope.

Historical context

The Franks were a group of Romanized Germanic dynasties within the collapsing Western Roman Empire, who eventually commanded the region between the rivers Loire and Rhine. Clovis I established a single kingdom uniting the core Frankish territories, and was crowned King of the Franks in 496. He and his descendants ruled the Merovingian dynasty until 751, when it was replaced by the Carolingians (751-843).

After the

and lasted for eight centuries (987–1792).

During the French Revolution, the last pre-revolutionary monarch,

.

For roughly the next eighty years, there was an alternating series of empires, republics, and a kingdom, until the 1870 establishment of the Third Republic. From that point on, it was republics down to the present day, with the exception of the authoritarian Vichy regime during World War II. The

in 1958, remains the political system in France as of 2022.

List

Name	Date	Type	constitution	Parliament		Form of government [fr]
				Lower house	Upper house
Federal monarchy	481[d] to 1 Jun 987[e]	Federal monarchy (481–987)	Fundamental laws (481–1575) then Fundamental laws (1575–1789)	Legislative power belonged to the king and not to the parlements, which were courts. The king could call an Estates General to solicit advice (the last was in 1789 ).		Ancien Régime (481–1791)	Conseil des affaires (later, Conseil d'en haut) (16th c.–1792)	Kingdom of France (481–1792)
Feudal monarchy	1 Jun 987–14 May 1610[f]	Feudal monarchy (987–1610)
Absolutism	14 May 1610–14 Sep 1791[g]	Absolutism (1610–1791)
			Articles of constitution of 1789 [fr]	National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)
Constitutional monarchy	14 Sep 1791–21 Sep 1792	Constitutional monarchy (1791–1792)	Constitution of 1791	Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)
							Provisional Executive Concil [fr] (Aug–Sep 1792)
First Republic	21 Sep 1792–18 May 1804	fr:Régime d'assemblée = ?? (1792–1795)	Constitution of 1793	National Convention (1792–1795)			Provisional Executive Concil [fr] (1792–1794)	French republic (1792–1804)
						General Defense Committee [fr] (Jan – Apr 1793)
						Committee of Public Safety (1793–1795)	Commissioners of the CPS (1794–1795)
		strict separation of powers (1795–1799)	Constitution of 1795	Council of Five Hundred (1795–1799)	Council of Ancients (1795–1799)	Directory (1795–1799)
		Consulate (1799–1802)	Constitution of 1799	Legislative Body (1799–1814)	Conservative Senate (1799–1814)	Consulate Consulate|Consular Commission 11 Nov 1799–13 Dec 1799 Consulate|Consulat 13 Dec 1799–2 Aug 1802 First Consul 2 Aug 1802–18 May 1804
		Authoritarianism (1802–1804)	Constitution of 1802
First Empire	18 May 1804–4 Apr 1814	Imperial monarchy (1804–1814)	Constitution of 1804			French Empire (1804–1814)
First Restoration	6 Apr 1814–20 Mar 1815	Constitutional monarchy (1814–1815)	Charter of 1814	Chamber of Deputies (1814–1815)	Chamber of Peers (1814–1848)	Kingdom of France (1814–1815)
Hundred Days	20 Mar 1815–7 Jul 1815	Imperial monarchy (Jun–Jul 1815)	Charter of 1815	Chamber of Representatives (Mar–Jul 1815)		French Empire (1815)
Second Restoration	8 Jul 1815–2 Aug 1830	Constitutional monarchy (1815–1830)	restoration of the Charter of 1814	Chamber of Deputies (1815–1848)		Kingdom of France (1815–1848)
July Monarchy	9 Aug 1830–24 Feb 1848	Constitutional monarchy (1830–1848)	Charter of 1830
Second Republic	24 Feb 1848–2 Dec 1852	no type	no constitution	Constituent Assembly of 1848 [fr] (1848–1849)		French republic (1848–1852)
		Presidential system (1849–1852)	Constitution of 1848	Legislative Assembly [fr] (1849–1851)
Second Empire	2 Dec 1852–4 Sep 1870	Imperial monarchy (1852–1870)	sixteen amendments	Corps législatif (1852-1870)	Senate (1852-1870)	French Empire (1852–1870)
Third Republic	4 Sep 1870–10 Jul 1940	Parliamentary republic (1871–1875)	no constitution from 1870 to 1874	National Assembly (1871) (1875-1942)		French republic (1870–present)
		Parliamentary system (1875–1940)	Constitutional Laws of 1875	National Assembly (3rd Rep.) [fr ] (1875-1942) Chamber of Deputies (France) (1875-1942) Senate (1875-1942)
Free France	18 Jun 1940–3 Jun 1943	Resistance movement (1940–1943)	Brazzaville Manifesto				authoritarian dictatorship[citation needed]) (1940[i]–1944) French Constitutional Law of 1940 Constitutional acts of the Vichy regime [fr ]
French Committee of National Liberation	3 Jun 1943–3 Jun 1944		Ordonnance from 17 Sep 1943	Provisional Consultative Assembly (1943–1945)
Provisional Government of the French Republic	3 Jun 1944–27 Oct 1946	no type	Ordinance of 9 August 1944	Constituent Assembly of 1945 [fr] (1945–1946)			Sigmaringen enclave (1944–1945)
		no type	Constitutional law of 2 November 1945	Constituent Assembly of 1946 [fr] (Jun–Nov 1946)
Fourth Republic	27 Oct 1946–4 Oct 1958	Parliamentary system (1946–1958)	Constitution of 1946	National Assembly (1946-1958)	Council of the Republic (1946-1958)
Fifth Republic	from 4 Oct 1958 to present (As of 2022[update])	Semi-presidential system (1958–present)	Constitution of 1958	Congress (1958–present) National Assembly (1958–present) Senate (1958–present)

Timeline diagram

See also

Notes

References

1. ^ Malvin 1996, p. 241.
2. ^ Sewell 1876, p. 48–49.

Works cited

• Malvin, Christian; Société de l'Ecole des chartes (1996). "La baptême de Clovis : heurs et malheurs d'un mythe fondateur de la France contemporaine, 1814-1914". In Guyotjeannin, Olivier (ed.). Clovis chez les historiens [Clovis according to the historians] (in French). Librairie Droz.
  OCLC 36533794
  .
• OCLC 81375924
  .

Further reading

• Armenteros, Carolina (7 July 2011). The French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and His Heirs, 1794–1854. Cornell University Press. pp. 331–.
  OCLC 1091534547
  .

• Birnbaum, Pierre (2001). The Idea of France. Hill and Wang.
  OCLC 1097906514
  .

• Bonaparte (King of Holland), Louis (1829). Réponse à Sir Walter Scott sur son Histoire de Napoléon [Response to Sir Walter Scott on his History of Napoleon] (in French) (2 ed.). C.J. Trouvé. pp. 1–.
  OCLC 669775736
  .

• Israel, Jonathan (23 March 2014). Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from The Rights of Man to Robespierre. Princeton University Press.
  OCLC 1034959418
  .

• Ladurie, Emmanuel le Roy (2017). Mind and Method of the Historian. Edward Everett Root.
  OCLC 987900976
  .

• Poitras, Daniel. Expérience du temps et historiographie au XXe siècle: Michel de Certeau, François Furet et Fernand Dumont [Experience of time and historiography in the 20th century] (in French). Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal.
  OCLC 1035256822
  .

• Ranum, Orest (1 March 2017). Artisans of Glory: Writers and Historical Thought in Seventeenth-Century France. UNC Press Books.
  OCLC 1099156876
  .

• Rearick, Charles (1974). Beyond the Enlightenment: Historians and Folklore in Nineteenth Century France. Indiana University Press.
  OCLC 2725983
  .