The Constitution of france

The Constitution of 4 October 1958 provides the institutional basis for the Fifth Republic. Its preamble explicitly refers to two previous texts, to which the French people solemnly proclaim their attachment: the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, and the preamble to the 1946 Constitution. The 1958 Constitution is short: only 88 articles (plus those of 1789 and 1946). It has been amended several times, for example to instituteelection of the President of the Republic by direct universal suffrage (1962), to incorporate a new clause defining the criminal liability of members of the Government (1993), and to establish a single parliamentary session (1995). The French Republic has only one explicit principle. It is set out in the fifth clause of Article 2 of the Constitution: "Government of the people, by the people and for the people" (borrowed from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address). As one commentator dryly notes notes "this principle is the one the Republic has espoused, without in fact always showing an equally effective concern for its implementation".


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