Electing presidents of the French Republic

Before the current French Presidential election procedure was introduced, by universal suffrage under a simple-majority two-round system, it had very different forms during successive republican systems. Between 1848 and 2022, it changed over the course of various regimes and political environments, gradually gaining the importance it now holds.

The Presidential election, however, was not always the cornerstone of French political life: it emerged with difficulty and almost disappeared on several occasions, at a time when there were not obvious links between the duties of a President and the idea of a Republic. 

Under the 2nd Republic

In March 1848, the French people took to the streets to sing the song written by Eugène Pottier to celebrate the adoption of universal suffrage by the provisional government:  “Tout français est électeur, ah ! quel bonheur !” (Every Frenchman is a voter, Oh, what joy!”).  The Republic had been proclaimed the previous month, and the first election took place in the month that followed. On 4 November, the Constituent Assembly adopted by a huge majority a constitution, which set out the conditions for electing a President of the French Republic: a direct, majority vote, through universal suffrage for men.

On 10 December, all of France went to the polling stations set up in administrative centres throughout the country – we can’t say they entered polling booths as they did not yet exist, and would not become an essential component of elections until the First World War.

To the great displeasure of republicans, neither General Eugène Cavaignac, the strong man of the regime, nor poet Alphonse de Lamartine, who had proclaimed the Republic on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, emerged victorious, but rather Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, son of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense de Beauharnais: the Emperor’s nephew, the future Napoleon III, became the first President of the French Republic. He achieved a resounding victory, needing only one round to win 75% of the votes. Journalist Émile de Girardin wrote in his newspaper La Presse: “It is not an election, but an acclamation!” 

Under the 3rd Republic

After the twenty years of the Second Empire, the situation had changed hugely: the republicans, who had proclaimed the Republic in September 1870, were wary of the strength of authority that a direct vote would confer on a single man at the Head of State.

In 1875, the constitutional laws which formed the legal framework for the 3rd Republic were passed by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. There were heated debates between those who believed that the President should be elected by deputies and senators, those who did not want a President but did want a Republic, and those who opposed the Republic and were striving to put a King back on the throne as quickly as possible.

The main amendment of these constitutional laws regarding the election of the President of the Republic was submitted by Henri Wallon, the deputy from the Nord department: he proposed that the President be elected by majority suffrage from the two Parliamentary chambers, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, meeting at the National Assembly. This famous amendment helped combine the notion of the Republic and the office of President, an association which has never since been called into question.

Following Adolphe Thiers, who began the custom whereby the French President appoints the president of the Council and chairs the Council of Ministers, and then Patrice de Mac-Mahon, who set the term of office at seven years, it was Jules Grévy who was the first President to be elected under these new rules. Ironically, this was the same Jules Grévy who in 1848 submitted an amendment to abolish the position of President of the French Republic! 

His successors were elected under the same conditions: Sadi Carnot, Jean Casimir-Périer, Félix Faure, Émile Loubet, Armand Fallières, Raymond Poincaré, Paul Deschanel, Alexandre Millerand, Gaston Doumergues, Paul Doumer and Alfred Lebrun.

Under the 4th Republic

When France was liberated, the electorate, which for the first time comprised both women and men, voted to change the constitution. The “yes” vote won a narrow victory in the referendum on 13 October 1946.
But nothing really changed in terms of how French Presidents were elected. Like before, they were elected by both chambers: the National Assembly and the Council of the Republic (today’s Senate). Two Presidents were elected under this regime: Vincent Auriol in 1947 and René Coty in 1954.

Under the 5th Republic

At the height of the Algerian crisis, general de Gaulle was asked by President Coty to form a government. The constitutional law of 3 June 1958 mandated the government to draw up a new constitution, which was adopted on 28 September, and enacted on 4 October: this was the start of the 5th Republic.

The procedure for electing a President of the French Republic changed radically: it was not yet universal suffrage, but much broader suffrage, with a mixed electorate comprising an electoral college of 80,000 officials (all elected representatives, from town councillors to senators, as well as a number of delegates from urban municipalities). On 21 December 1958, the electoral college elected General de Gaulle as President of the French Republic by a very large majority.

Four years on, against the backdrop of the 1962 political crisis, marked by the Évian Accords and the Petit-Clamart attack, General de Gaulle decided to change the rules for electing a President, lending them greater legitimacy through universal suffrage. He chose to use Article 11 of the Constitution and to call a referendum, in which “yes” won by a wide margin, receiving over 62% of votes.

Since the 1962 constitutional reform, the President of the French Republic has been elected by universal suffrage under a simple-majority two-round system, with the same procedures still used today. The Presidential election thus became a major social and media event. The 1965 election, won by General de Gaulle, marked the start of contemporary political life. After General de Gaulle came Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron.