Two stylized facts are woven through the literature on Fifth Republic France. The first is the primacy of the president in French politics. Institutional arrangements, and in particular the direct election of the president since 1962, are said to give the president vast power. Presidential power is held to be further augmented by the presidentialization of French political parties: since the presidency is an enormous prize, parties are organized to service the needs of their presidential aspirants, and these présidentiables are believed to exercise extraordinary control over party positions on policy.

The second stylized fact is that the National Assembly plays no important role in policymaking. A whole host of constitutional procedures that ‘rationalize’ the role of parliament, together with the emergence of coherent legislative majorities under the Fifth Republic, are said to limit substantially the opportunities for France's elected representatives to participate meaningfully in the legislative process. The National Assembly is therefore often held to be among the weakest legislatures in the advanced industrialized world.

These two stylized facts have had a significant impact on political science research. On one hand, the presidential interpretation of the French system has often led comparative research on parliamentary government to exclude the Fifth Republic. A survey of nineteen studies of coalition formation, for example, reveals only five that include the Fifth Republic, while eight exclude France altogether and six focus only on the Fourth Republic.