french president

France 's head of state .[1] Also serves as co-prince of Andorra . His full name is the President of the French Republic (président de la République française), and in France he is also known as the President of the Republic (Président de la République) for short.

UN As he is a member of the permanent council and the president of France, a leading power in the European Union along with Germany , his international status is very high.[2] Moreover, in the former French colonial countries in Africa , the influence of the French military is so absolute that it is said that the highest power in Africa is the French president , not the Egyptian president.[3]

The current president is Emmanuel Macron, the 25th president .

In France, the 'head of state determined by parliamentary elections or direct elections' has existed since the days of the First Republic of France (refer to the First Republic below), but the 'head of state determined by election' using the title of President is the 2nd French Republic. It's been there since time immemorial. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte , the first French president, overthrew the Republic system four years later and made himself emperor. The presidency was abolished with the arrival of Napoleon III .

The presidency was revived with the launch of the Third French Republic, but at this time, as the parliamentary system was adopted, the president remained a face-to-face figure, and most of the real power was held by the French prime minister .

Following the invasion of France by Nazi Germany , the Third Republic was overthrown, and Philippe Petain assumed the de facto presidency of Vichy France, with the title of Chef de l'État français. The government -in -exile , Free France , was President Charles de Gaulle .

Afterwards, with the adoption of the parliamentary system in the Fourth French Republic, the president became a face again and the real power was taken over by the French Prime Minister . However , in 1958, the constitution was revised to a dual administration system and the French Fifth Republic was launched, and the power of the president greatly increased. .

They are elected through direct elections and runoff elections . The term of office is 5 years and may be extended only once .[5]

From 1959 to 2002, like Italy , the term of office was seven years and there was no limit to reappointment . With the 2000 constitutional amendment, the term of office was reduced to five years like in Germany, and with the 2008 constitutional amendment, it was limited to a maximum of two terms.[6]

Any French citizen over the age of 18 who has the right to vote can run for office , which is quite an unconventional condition compared to the United States where the age limit for running for president is 35 and Korea where it is 40 . Also, unlike the United States, even naturalized foreigners are given the right to run for president if they have stayed in France for a certain period of time .[7] Instead, you need 500 recommenders to actually run for office.[8] Supporting signatures are needed.[9]

On the other hand, if the president is judged to have failed to perform his duties stipulated in the Constitution , he may be impeached . Although France is a country that adopts a bicameral system , impeachment trials are conducted in a very unique way, rather than through prosecution in the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate , as in the United States and Brazil . First, after the National Assembly (House of Representatives) proposes and passes the impeachment bill, the impeachment bill must also be passed in the Senate. If it is passed by both the National Assembly and the Senate, the High Court (Haute Cour), an impeachment court made up of House of Representatives and Senate members, will be formed, where impeachment can be impeached only with the approval of two-thirds of the members.

In the event of a presidential vacancy, the Senate President assumes the authority of the President, and an early presidential election is held immediately. The term of office is also reset, and the president elected at this time is also guaranteed a five-year term. Meanwhile, unlike the elected president, the acting president does not have the right to dissolve the National Assembly or refer to a referendum , but unlike Korea, the acting president is also treated as an official president.

France is generally classified as a country with a dual administration system , but in reality, the president's power is particularly strong among European republics , to the point that some say it is no different from a presidential system. Even compared to some presidential systems, it has considerably stronger authority and power and can exercise emergency powers at any time.[10] To the point that there is a sarcastic comment that he is the emperor elected by the French . The President of France typically has the following powers:

However, in the past, French politicians entrusted the authority of leading the cabinet to the prime minister elected by the National Assembly (House of Representatives) in order to keep power in check while introducing the presidential system. And since the French Prime Minister is in fact appointed by the President, he is a person nominated by the National Assembly .[19] It can put a brake on the president's solo rule. And the National Assembly can hold the Prime Minister accountable and pass a resolution of no confidence in the Cabinet. Therefore, if a cohabitation government is formed where the president and prime minister belong to different political parties, the president will lose real power in all areas except foreign affairs and national defense .

However, as both the left and right parties in France experienced a cohabitation government in the past and the political situation became unstable, the presidential term was shortened from 7 years to 5 years in 2002 and the general election was also held a month after the presidential election. Since then, the party that won the presidential election has been elected. Riding on that momentum, they naturally won the general election and have a majority in the National Assembly. So, in the end, the French Prime Minister, like the Korean Prime Minister, effectively performs the role of President . Because of this, there is a high possibility that the National Assembly will also be effectively taken over, so there is almost no need to use the right to dissolve the National Assembly.

He serves as co-principal of Andorra together with the Bishop of Urgell , sending a Governor-General to Andorra to represent the French President in his role as monarch of Andorra. The French President has the right to become a lifelong member of the French Constitutional Council, the constitutional court , after his retirement.

Italy Since Henry IV, it has been customary for the head of state of France to serve as the honorary adviser of the Cathedral of San Giovanni in Laterano, the Catholic cathedral located in Rome . Presidents François Mitterrand and François Hollande refused this post under the principle of separation of state and state , but President Emmanuel Macron accepted it. article .

In the First French Republic , there was no President. However, there was a President of the National Convention (Président de la Convention nationale), who was almost like a President, a President of the Directory (Présidence du directoire), and a Consul. In English, it is translated as President, which is the same as the President.

The Second Republic also had the office of Vice- President (Vice-président de la République française), in which the President chose three candidates and Parliament elected one of them as Vice-President. Henri Georges Boulay de la Meurthe was vice-president at the time, and he remains the only French vice-president.

Most of the presidents of the French Third Republic died or resigned during their term, which created instability. Furthermore, unlike many European monarchies such as Austria-Hungary , Britain , Germany , and Russia , France was close to a parliamentary cabinet system, so it was virtually invisible during World War I.

CHEF de L'état Français

Président du Comité National Français

He served as chairman of the State Council, head of the Gouvernement Provisoire Provisional Gouvernement.

In the Fifth Republic, as the form of government in France changed to a two-member government system , the power of the president became powerful. Perhaps that is why various media outlets, politicians , and netizens often record Charles de Gaulle , the first president of the Fifth Republic, as the first president of France.

As of 2024 , there are two former presidents alive: Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande .

There are almost no French presidents (leaders) who have not been involved in a sexual scandal from the time of the National Convention to the present . In particular, presidents after De Gaulle had scandals big and small, including mistresses , illegitimate children , and various extramarital affairs/ affairs . The only French presidents who are free from this sex scandal are Charles de Gaulle , who was faithful to his wife throughout his life, and Robespierre during the National Convention, who did not date at all and only became engaged right before his death .

However, unlike in Korea or the United States , it is basically dismissed as an individual's deviation and has no significant influence on the driving force of the president's performance of state affairs. In France, many presidents have been involved in extramarital affairs in the past, but many French people responded that it did not really matter. For example, when Paris March magazine exposed Mitterrand's daughter out of wedlock, the predominant response from the French people, media, and political circles was why they were bringing up something that had nothing to do with political affairs.

There are also former presidents who have been accused not only of infidelity but also of various charges. Former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing was accused of sexually harassing a female reporter, and former President Nicolas Sarkozy is almost the only EU leader accused of making various outrageous remarks , raising slush funds , and receiving bribes .[45] He was imprisoned (more accurately, under house arrest). Former President François Hollande was also criticized for frequently spewing out remarks bordering on profanity , and President François Mitterrand also ate hortoland, a legally prohibited dish, just before his death .

Because of this, the French president is in a particularly lame duck situation compared to other countries , and since Charles de Gaulle , not a single president has successfully been re-elected. François Mitterrand was defeated by the conservatives in the 1986 general election, which was a mid-term election, but was re-elected thanks to right-wing Prime Minister Jacques Chirac , who excessively pushed for privatization, arousing public resentment and playing the role of a scoundrel. Jacques Chirac was re-elected by a poor margin, with far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen advancing to the runoff due to divisions in the left wing, and President Emmanuel Macron was also divided between the extreme right and the extreme left. He came in second and third place in the first round of voting and was re-elected by winning the votes of centrists who went to the polls crying and saying goodbye. The remaining presidents, Valery Giscard d'Estaing , Nicolas Sarkozy , and François Hollande , failed to be re-elected. In addition, the political parties of presidents who failed to be re-elected have something in common: they have never been in power again since the president left office. In the case of Georges Pompidou , who died in office and served a single term, his political party failed to return to power even though he received sympathy votes after his death .[46]

For this reason, President Emmanuel Macron is also suffering from various suspicions of corruption even though he barely succeeded in being re-elected.[47] Less than a year after being re-elected, the approval rating fell to the 30% range, the ruling party failed to secure a majority in the general election held immediately after the presidential election, and the ruling party's floor leader was defeated by a left-wing opposition candidate, making government administration difficult in many ways.