Constitution (France)

Wikipedia:

French Constitution of 4 October 1958

The French Constitution of 4 October 1958 is the current Constitution of France and thus governs the French Fifth Republic. Supreme legal rule of the country, this is one of the most stable it has ever known.

During the war in Algeria, it was written in the stated aim of ending government instability and the risk of military coup; it is marked by the return of a strong executive. Two men in particular printed their ideas: Michel Debré, the British model and Prime Minister strong, and General de Gaulle, hearing erect the president guarantor of institutions in accordance with the principles in his speech of Bayeux, June 16, 1946, and Epinal, September 29, 1946.

It establishes a political system with variable geometry according to whether one is in a period of reconciliation of presidential and legislative majorities or, conversely, of cohabitation. In times of agreement, the National Assembly, the Prime Minister and his government and the president have the same political edge: the president has authority to limit the exercise of constitutional powers of the Prime Minister. Conversely, in periods of cohabitation, the letter of the Constitution is more respected (the President of the Republic François Mitterrand, submitted twice in this case, said that "cohabitation is the Constitution, nothing the Constitution but the entire Constitution ") 1.

Its preamble refers to two fundamental texts of the Declaration on Human Rights and the Citizen of 26 August 1789 and the Preamble of the Constitution of 27 October 1946 (the Charter of the 2004 Environment them subsequently added ). These texts and jurisprudential principles they have revealed, including the fundamental principles recognized by the laws of the Republic from the Preamble to 1946 form with the Constitution strictly speaking, it is called the constitutionality block since the constitutional Council granted constitutional status to the preamble of the Constitution in 19712.

The Constitutional Council verifies the conformity of laws with the Constitution when it is entered, before their promulgation or by way of exception (priority question of constitutionality), since the constitutional reform of July 2008, when the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution are involved.