The Senate of the Fifth French Republic

by Smith, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780230008113
• ISBN10: 0230008119
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-11-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

What is the Senate for and what does it do? Everyone knows what the French president, the National Assembly and political parties are for and what they do, but not the upper house. At his inauguration in October 2008, the Senate's new speaker made it his goal to make this common-place redundant by the end of his term in 2011. It may be the least well known of the institutions of the Fifth Republic, but the Senate is an assembly based on that most particular aspect of French political culture-local government and local lus. As Paul Smith shows, it is an institution that has evolved with the regime, sometimes in surprising ways, and finds itself, at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, on the brink of potentially great and certainly unexpected changes in form and content. Book jacket.

Author Biography

PAUL SMITH is Associate Professor in the Department of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Nottingham.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. x
List of Maps	p. xii
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Abbreviations	p. xiv
Introduction	p. 1
The Senate in the Fifth Republic
Bicameralism and political culture in the French Republic	p. 11
The constitution is the Senate 1875	p. 12
1884	p. 18
A republican Grand Council of Notables	p. 20
Absolute bicameralism	p. 24
The Fourth Republic-Bayeux and its consequences	p. 29
The provisional Council of the Republic	p. 32
The return to 1884	p. 33
De Gaulle and the Senate 1958-1969	p. 37
La restauration sénatoriale writing the Senate in 1958	p. 39
The revenge of the notables	p. 42
Ostracism	p. 45
Bayeux redux	p. 49
1969: renovation of the Senate	p. 52
The parliamentary other 1969-1997	p. 57
Normalisation	p. 58
The bipolar trap	p. 60
Une redoutable machine de guerre	p. 63
Cohabitation and the Senate	p. 65
Renovation versus reform	p. 67
Recovery	p. 71
Anomaly and apotheosis 1997-2009	p. 75
Une anomalie	p. 76
Parity, décumul and Senate reform	p. 77
Apotheosis-a senator at Matignon	p. 79
Between hyperpresidentialism and parliamentary fetishism	p. 83
Balladur II and the millefeuille territorial	p. 88
Senators and the Senate
Departments, seats and colleges	p. 95
The Senate in 1959	p. 96
1976-a missed opportunity	p. 100
2003-the loi Poncelet	p. 102
The electoral colleges	p. 107
The Raincourt proposal	p. 117
Mayfly electors	p. 119
Representing expatriates	p. 121
Les élus des elus	p. 123
Continuity and change	p. 128
Departmental turnover	p. 131
Senators, ministers and suppléants	p. 136
Deputies and senators	p. 138
The cumul des mandats	p. 142
Parity and sénatrices	p. 144
Mortality, age and longevity	p. 147
From a chambre d'agriculture to the République des professeurs	p. 151
Senators for French expatriates	p. 152
Senate elections and the Constitutional Council	p. 154
Being a senator	p. 157
Président de tous les sénateurs-the speaker of the Senate	p. 158
Vingt-deux and de présidence	p. 161
From Poher to pohérisation	p. 163
France's no. 1 car dealer	p. 166
A modest speaker for an ambitious Senate	p. 168
Un mandat de trop?	p. 171
Mon bon Gérard	p. 173
The executive bureau and the conférence des présidents	p. 175
The Republic of committees	p. 179
Political groups and political balance	p. 181
La gauche au pouvoir?	p. 187
Conclusion	p. 191
A quoi sert le Sénat?	p. 191
La chambre de tous les dangers	p. 193
Notes	p. 197
Select Bibliography	p. 209
Index	p. 215
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