French Public Opinion and the Founding of the Fourth Republic

As French plotted their path to recovery in aftermath of World War II, choice of country's political system was among most crucial ones facing nation. Any doubts that people would support Charles de Gaulle's appeal for a wholly new constitution were erased in October 1945, when 96 percent of electorate voted in a referendum to replace rather than reform a political system widely considered to have contributed to France's decline in 1930s and defeat in 1940. Yet within one year, France had a new constitution that largely replicated unstable parliamentary system of discredited Third Republic. Although several writers have offered explanations for this puzzling series of events, in this article I will argue that those explanations are unsatisfactory and that events need reinterpretation. A common theme in many explanations for France's return to a parliamentary system has been an emphasis on role of French public opinion.' The most systematic explanations yet attemptedoriginally developed independently by Philip M. Williams and David Thomson and since embraced by many others-focus on fragmented nature of political opinions in France. In Thomson's view, reasons for reenactment of a parliamentary system lay in nature of French party system itself, and beyond that again in structure of French public opinion.2 In short, the multiple fractures

Economic history · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Public Administration

• Fear and Loathing in Paris

  Jon Cowans•Social Science History•2002

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• Fear and Loathing in Paris

  Open Access•Jon Cowans•Social Science History•2002

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