So far in this module, we have concentrated on domestic issues in postwar France and have paid little attention to developments taking place outside of France. In this lecture, on the fall of the Fourth Republic and the birth of Fifth, we will consider France's foreign policy and its relations with other countries, especially those with its colonies. One of the failures of the Fourth Republic, many have argued, was its inability to cope with the challenges it faced by decolonization. Although les Trente Glorieuses are years of growing prosperity, they were also a period of political instability aggravated by the Cold War and, more significantly for France, decolonization.
Following the Liberation of France in 1944, the dominant political forces behind the Resistance formed a provisional government with General de Gaulle as its head. However, the provisional government, with its unstable alliance of Left and Right were soon divided over such issues as continued social inequality, France's relations with the Soviet Union and, of course, the future of France's colonies. The nature of state power was another area of contention. Should France, as de Gaulle argued, go for strong and decisive leadership with a powerful executive and a single National Assembly? Or should France go for greater democracy and accountability, limiting such power by creating a strong second chamber and exerting a moderating influence?
After two constituent assemblies elected by universal suffrage and three referendums, the Constitution of the Fourth Republic was adopted in October 1946. After a second referendum, a more parliamentary-style regime was adopted not de Gaulle's preferred model. Its effect was to put the breaks on decisive leadership and create political instability. In just twelve years there were twenty-three prime ministers, with government after government falling. Although there was consensus on certain issues - measures taken towards the reconstruction of France being one - it was beset by stong political diffrences. De Gaulle, who had withdrawn from the provisional government as early as January 1946, into opposition and one of his first steps was to form a political party which would provide a platform for his ideas on the nature of state power appropriate to France, the Rassemblement du peuple francais.
Although France's enjoyed improving relations with West Germany - Jean Monnet with Robert Schuman were the founders of what we now call the European Union - it was divided on its relations with the Soviet Union. The French Communist Party, the PCF, was a major force in French politics, a position strengthened by its wartime record of resistance. What, ties, however, should it have to a Soviet Union that was perceived by most western politicians to be a threat to European, if not world, peace and which was acquiring a growing reputation for repression? Many Communists ministers found themselves excluded from government on the grounds of their party's continued support for the Soviet Union.
Another force creating political tension was the rise of the extra-parliamentary extreme Right, as represented by Pierre Poujade. Claiming to represent the interests of les petits against the growing dominance of les gros, Poujadism enjoyed considerable success in France, despite the memory of a recently discredited French fascism. Support grew for his xenophobic nationalism in the 1950s as France found itself embroiled in the war in Algeria.
The greatest threat to the stability of the Fourth Republic was created by the crises engendered by decolonisation. France, like Great Britain, was a major colonial power. The colonial power after Great Britain, in fact, and a colonial power whose identity was related to its numerous colonial possessions. The postwar years, however, witness a challenge to colonialism by the colonized. Independence movements sprang in the colonies in the immediate aftermath of the war. There were, for example, riots by Algerian nationalists in Sétif on VE day which was brutally repressed by the French army and another. repressed with greater ferocity two years later in Madagascar. The first major war of decolonization, however, took place not in Africa but in French Indo-China. Ho Chi Minh, a communist with a pre-war record of anti-colonialist struggle, led an independence movement - the so-called Viet Minh - that began a war against France. The protracted guerilla war that followed - a war the French army were ill-equipped to deal with - led to the eventual withdrawal of France. The fall of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 marked the definitive end for France in Vietnam, and, incidentally, for yet another French government. President Pierre Mendès France signed the peace agreement on 20th July 1954.
In July 1954 then, the French Prime Minister, Pierre Mendès-France, ended the French domination of Indo-China. France spared itself further bloodshed by granting independance to both Morroco and Tunisia in 1956. But this decision was also taken because of the determination in Paris to concentrate resources on re-establishing French influence in Europe and on concenrating energies on internal economic renewal. The rapid economic progress made by the Germans, observed with admiration from Paris, partly explains this change in strategy. It was unfortunate for France however,that as soon as it had withdrawn from Asia, a revolt began in Algeria that would claim hundreds of thousands of lives (18,000 French and 250,000 Algerian Muslims (of whom a third were killed by the FLN) died in the eight years of this guerre sans nom) and lead to the fall of the Fourth Republic.
Algeria had been a colony of France since the middle of the nineteenth
century. In the 1930s, with unemployment, malnutrition and poor education
rife amongst the Muslim population, a nationalist movement emerged,
although it was divided internally as to its objectives: assimilation with
the French versus independence. During the Second World War there was
co-operation between Algerian Nationalists and de Gaulle in their was at a
celebration of the allied victory over Nazism that conflict between the
Algerian Nationalists and the French state broke out. At a demonstration
in Sétif there was a clash between Algerian Nationalists bearing flags and
the police. Violent uprisings blew up sporadically and were brutally
crushed. Keen to project an image if liberal tolerance in their dealings
with their colonial possessions, the French Government drew up a new
Algerian constitution granting greater civil and religious liberty to the
Arabs. The legislation however, needed a two-thirds majority in the
Assemblée Nationale, which was never acheived. Rational
policy-making was also blocked by the power of the settler, or
colon, lobby which was directly represented. At this time,
Algeria's three départments had constitutionally the same status as
those in metropolitan France. Les colons represented 10% of
Algeria's population and were the only people allowed to vote and they
made sure their voices were heard in Paris.
On the 1st November 1954 a rebellion which was to last eight years broke
out in Algeria. The causes were numerous but included a growing
population, stagnant agriculture, migration to urban centres and
consequent unemployment there and an educated cadre of indigènes
with new political aspirations. Algeria had always occupied a significant
position within France's colonial outlook because of its proximity with
the European mainland. Although this was also true of Morocco and Tunisia,
two of France's principal North African dependencies, the issue of
decolonization there did not cause the reverberations and fractures in
metropolitan politics as did Algeria. Indeed, the Algerian War brought
about the collapse of the Fourth Republic.
Algeria was different from Morocco and Tunisia because of the presence of
over one million white settlers of European descent. Mainly French, though
with considerable Italian and Maltese communities, these settlers were
familiarly known as pieds noirs and had established themselves from
the 1870s. More so than perhaps other settler communities in parts of the
British Empire, the pieds noirs had strong roots in Algeria.
The war was a fierce one: France became notorious for its use of terror
and torture and accusations of intimidation were also made against
anti-French Algerians. In France, as well as in Algeria, there was strong
press censorship with entire print runs of newspapers containing articles
deemed anti-war or critical of government policy confiscated. Henri
Alleg's La Question (1958), published by Les Éditions de Minuit was
a notable exception to this censorship with its exposé of the systematic
torture used by General Massu's paratroop regiment against Algerian
nationalists. The so-called
As the war continued the pieds noirs in Algiers and other coastal
towns grew suspicious that peace would be negociated and staged
significant demonstrations. The Right in both France and in Algeria called
for de Gaulle to assume power and to fight until the bitter end. Their
protest caused a political crisis and almost overnight de Gaulle was
proclaimed President. This was a major energency for France and de Gaulle,
l'homme providentiel was called back to solve it and given a free
had to re-write the constitution.
The pieds noirs however had not counted on de Gaulle's repudiation
of Algeria's continued integration with France. De Gaulle opted for
associated self-government, annonced plans for Muslim educational and
economic development and offered peace talks with the FLN. At first his
proposals met with little reaction and the war continued. In September
1959 he renewed his efforts for peace by proposing that four years after
ceasefire the Algerian people should decide by free vote between three
alternatives:
The pieds noirs, dissatisfied by events formed the OAS, the
Organisation armée secrète which began a terrorist campaign against
Muslims. In April 1962 its leader, General Salan was captured and
terrorist activity declined. From that point many pieds noirs fled
to France. On the 1st July 1962 the referendum of the Algerian took place
and independance in co-operation with France was chosen. Two days later de
Gaulle recognized Algeria's independance and in October Algeria was
accepted as a member state of the United Nations.
The crisis in Algeria finally allowed de Gaulle's ideas on the nature of
state authority to be put into practice. The constitution drawn up in 1958
was the first republican constitution not debated in parliament. De Gaulle
was allowed to re-write the constitution in a way that made it more
presidential than parliamentary. What this meant, was that presidential
powers were strengthened at the expense of the parliment's power. The
function of president was no longer ceremonial, but now included the power
to overrule parliament, dissolve the chambre de députés, appoint and
sack ministers, including Prime Ministers. Hitherto, these powers rested
in the hands of parliament. An interesting new measure make cabinet
ministersno longer accountable to parliament. Indeed, any elected député
who was appointed to the cabinet was obliged to resign their seat.
On a number of important occasions, this is precisely what de Gaulle did,
using referanda and televised press conference to appeal to the French
people above the heads of parliament. Central to de Gaulle's thinking
about politics is a disdain for political parties and institutions that
impeded his relationship with the nation, la nation profonde, with
whom he assumed a special relationship by dint, amongst other things, of
his wartime record. Strange as it may seem, but de Gaulle held a
quasi-mystical belief in his power to represent the interests of the
French. De Gaulle therefore tended to seek support for his actions, not
from parliament - a institution he had little time for - but through a
direct appeal to the French.
It is interesting to note that support for de Gaulle's style of leadership
was widespread. In the decade between 1958 and 1968 France was at the peak
of les Trente glorieuses and enjoying the good times of this
gaullist golden era of prosperity and economic growth. During the Fifth
Republic, the inflation rate was brought down, stability was restored to
government (parliament no longer had the power to make and unmake
governments) and France sucessfully negotiated its way out of a bloody war
of decolonization.
Text: Tony McNeill
The pieds noirs were, by this point, thoroughly disillusionned with
de Gaulle who they had expected to uphold the principle of l'Algérie
française, and in January 1960 they exploded in an insurrection. It
failed but was followed by a more serious revolt led by four generals in
April 1961 and which lasted three days. De Gaulle assumed special powers
and entered into secret negociations at Évian-les-Bains between Louis
Joxe, the French Minister for Algerian affairs and Belka-cem-Krim, the
Foreign secretary of the Algerian Provisional Government (GPRA). On the
18th March 1962 the ceasefire was signed. The referendum on independance
would be held and its outcome accepted by France. France would be allowed
to keep its nuclear testing sites in the Sahara for five years and Ben
Bella and the four other Algerian leaders arrested would be released.
Temporary administration of Algeria was set up and placed under a council
of nine Algerians and three Europeans. The French people endorsed the
Évian agreement by a 90.7% vote.
The Fifth Republic 1958-1969
Further Reading
The University of Sunderland
Last Update 1-Nov-99
