Constitution of the Fourth Republic

It soon became clear that the apparent unity forged in the Resistance was superficial and that the new political elite was sharply divided over the form of the new republic. Some urged the need for greater stability through a strong executive; others, notably the Communists, favoured concentrating power in a one-house legislature subject to grassroots control by the voters. De Gaulle remained aloof from this controversy, though it was obvious that he favoured a strong presidency. In January 1946 de Gaulle suddenly resigned his post as provisional president, apparently expecting that a wave of public support would bring him back to power with a mandate to impose his constitutional ideas. Instead, the public was stunned and confused, and it failed to react. The assembly promptly chose the Socialist Félix Gouin to replace him, and the embittered de Gaulle retired to his country estate.

The assembly’s constitutional draft, submitted to a popular referendum in May 1946, was rejected by the voters. A new assembly was quickly elected to prepare a revised draft, which in October was narrowly approved by the voters. De Gaulle actively intervened in the campaign for the second referendum, denouncing the proposed system as unworkable and urging the need for a stronger executive. His ideas anticipated the system that later was to be embodied in the constitution of the Fifth Republic (1958).

Political and social changes

The structure of the Fourth Republic seemed remarkably like that of the Third; in actual operation it seemed even more familiar. The lower house of parliament (now renamed the National Assembly) was once more the locus of power; shaky coalition cabinets again succeeded one another at brief intervals, and the lack of a clear-cut majority in the country or in parliament hampered vigorous or coherent action. Many politicians from the prewar period turned up once again in cabinet posts.

Yet outside the realm of political structure and parliamentary gamesmanship there were real and fundamental changes. The long sequence of crises that had shaken the nation since 1930 had left a deep imprint on French attitudes. There was much less public complacency; both the routines and the values of the French people had been shaken up and subjected to challenge by a generation of upheaval. Many of the new men who had emerged from the Resistance movement into political life, business posts, or the state bureaucracy retained a strong urge toward renovation as well as to a reassertion of France’s lost greatness.

This altered mood helps to explain the economic growth that marked the later years of the Fourth Republic. The painful convalescence from the ravages of war was speeded by massive aid from the United States and by the gentle persuasion (and ample credits) of Jean Monnet’s Planning Commissariat (Commissariat Général du Plan), adopted in 1947. A burst of industrial expansion in most branches of the economy began in the mid-1950s, unmatched in any decade of French history since the 1850s. The rate of growth for a time rivaled that of Germany and exceeded that of most other European countries. The only serious flaw in the boom was a nagging inflationary trend that weakened the franc. Short-lived coalition cabinets were incapable of taking the painful measures needed to check this trend.

Colonial independence movements

A less fortunate aspect of the national urge to reassert France’s stature in the world was the Fourth Republic’s costly effort to hold the colonial empire. France’s colonies had provided de Gaulle with his first important base of support as leader of Free France, and, as the war continued, they had furnished valuable resources and manpower. The colonial peoples, therefore, now felt justified in demanding a new relationship with France, and French leaders recognized the need to grant concessions. But most of these leaders, including de Gaulle, were not prepared to permit any infringement on French sovereignty, either immediately or in the foreseeable future. For a nation seeking to rebuild its self-respect, the prospect of a loss of empire seemed unacceptable; most of the French, moreover, were convinced that the native peoples overseas lacked the necessary training for self-government and that a relaxation of the French grip would merely open the way to domination by another imperial power. The constitution of 1946 therefore introduced only mild reforms: the empire was renamed the French Union, within which the colonial peoples would enjoy a narrowly limited local autonomy plus some representation in the French parliament.

This cautious reform came too late to win acceptance in many parts of the empire. The situation was most serious in Southeast Asia, where the Japanese had displaced the French during World War II. Japan’s defeat in 1945 enabled the French to regain control of southern Indochina, but the northern half was promptly taken over by a Vietnamese nationalist movement headed by the communist Ho Chi Minh. French efforts to negotiate a compromise with Ho’s regime broke down in December 1946, and a bloody eight-year war followed. In the end, the financial and psychological strain proved too great for France to bear, and, after the capture of the French stronghold of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 by the Vietnamese, the French sought a face-saving solution. A conference of interested powers at Geneva that year ended the war by establishing what was intended as a temporary division of Vietnam into independent northern and southern states. Two other segments of Indochina, the former protectorates of Laos and Cambodia, had earlier been converted by the French into independent monarchies to preserve some French influence there.

On the night of October 31, 1954, barely six months after the fighting in Indochina ended, Algerian nationalists raised the standard of rebellion. By 1958 more than a half million French soldiers had been sent to Algeria—the largest overseas expeditionary force in French history. France’s determination to hold Algeria stemmed from a number of factors: the presence of almost a million European settlers, the legal fiction that Algeria was an integral part of France, and the recent discovery of oil in the southern desert. Fears that the rebellion might spread to Tunisia and Morocco led the French to make drastic concessions there; in 1956 both of these protectorates became sovereign states.

The long and brutal struggle in Algeria gravely affected the political life of the Fourth Republic and ended by destroying it. A vocal minority in France openly favoured a negotiated settlement, though no political leader dared take so unpopular a position. Right-wing activists, outraged at what they saw as the spread of defeatism, turned to conspiracy; both in Paris and in Algiers, extremist groups began to plot the replacement of the Fourth Republic by a tougher regime, headed by army officers or perhaps by General de Gaulle.

These plans had not yet matured when a cabinet crisis in April–May 1958 gave the conspirators a chance to strike. On May 13, when a new cabinet was scheduled to present its program to the National Assembly, activist groups in Algiers went into the streets in an effort to influence parliament’s vote. By nightfall they were in control of the city and set up an emergency government with local army support. De Gaulle on May 15 announced that he was prepared to take power if called to do so by his fellow citizens. Two weeks of negotiations followed, interspersed with threats of violent action by the Algiers rebels. Most of the Fourth Republic’s political leaders reluctantly concluded that de Gaulle’s return was the only alternative to an army coup that might lead to civil war. On June 1, therefore, the National Assembly voted de Gaulle full powers for six months, thus putting a de facto end to the Fourth Republic.