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The Conseil d’État in the Fifth Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2017

Henry Parris
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Extract

There is a standing temptation, at least in Britain and the United States, to equate ‘opposition’ with ‘alternative government’. Politics is seen as something like cricket, one team batting, another fielding. When the last batsman is out, the other side is ready immediately to take its place. This preoccupation tends to prevent English students of politics from recognizing the many forms that opposition may take in countries where the game of politics is played according to different rules. Consequently, they often fail to understand other political systems. One such system exists no farther away than the other side of the English Channel. Only fitfully and intermittently has France ever possessed an alternative government, ready to take over smoothly from the one in power. Changes of government have usually been either reshuffles within coalitions—plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose—or complete changes of regime. When the regimes become more authoritarian opposition manifests itself in other ways. This article seeks to show that in the first seven years of the Fifth Republic the Conseil d’État has played an opposition role. Such a possibility becomes more credible against the background of history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , October 1966 , pp. 89 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1967

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References

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