Sunday's results--strong approval by the French of their latest constitution--open a new episode in France's political development. It is as yet too early to analyze the meaning of the voting pattern; below, Mr. Hoffman, Henry LaBarre Jayne Assistant Professor of Government, discusses the principles, provisions and prospects of the Charter on which the Fifth French Republic will be based.

For more than twelve years, as head of the ill-fated French People's Rally, and in his memoirs, General de Gaulle has made the institution of the Third and Fourth Republics responsible for France's political troubles. According to him, these institutions expressed all too faithfully the many divisions of French thought and interests. Hence the impotence of the Executive, which depended for survival on heterogenous, unstable coalitions, and which could do no more, on crucial issues such as Indochina, German rearmament or Algeria, than accumulate postponements until external events imposed their own solutions.

Strong State to Combat Strife

DeGaulle has always proposed as a remedy the establishment of a strong state, which will make the government of France possible in spite of party conflicts and intra-party splits but which will nevertheless continue to owe its authority to popular consent.

Two assumptions co-exist, rather awkwardly, in the General's mind. There is first an optimistic postulate according to which the French nation, underneath all its divisions, still possesses a dormant general will which could be aroused by a dynamic and stable government. There is also the pessimistic idea that the divisions of the electorate are here to stay, that no constitutional trickery could erase them, and consequently that the Executive will be strong only if it is removed from intimate contact with an electorate and a Parliament which remain unable to produce a coherent majority.

Numerous examples could be used to show that both assumptions are indeed correct. Nevertheless, their theoretical implications are mutually exclusive. To reconcile them is a difficult as the squaring of the circle; however, this is exactly what the new constitution tries to do.

Parliamentary Government Retained

On the one hand, paliamentary government will continue. Governments will again require parliamentary support for their establishment and their survival, as the difference of American cabinets. The idea of having France's chief executive elected by universal suffrage has not been adopted, partly because of plebiscitarian memories, partly because of the fundamental nature of France's divisions. Except if he resorted to dictatorial manipulations, a popularly elected French president would be likely to represent no more than a small fraction of the electorate, and his authority would be open to constant challenge. A presidential system works effectively only if the great bulk of the electorate accepts the "rules of the game." This is not the case of modern France.

Executive Made More Powerful

On the other hand, however, two sets of drastic measures are introduced in order to provide the Executive with power and prestige. First, Parliament's capacity to cripple the government is reduced. This is what de Gaulle means when he speaks of "a government and a Parliament that work together but remain separate as to their responsibilities."

Parliament's sessions will be shorter. The power of parliamentary committees is curtailed. Cabinets can be overthrown only if a motion of no confidence is carried by an absolute majority of the National Assembly's members; if such a motion fails its authors cannot try again for one year. Also, deputies will be less tempted to destroy a cabinet in order to become ministers in the next one; from now on deputies who enter a cabinet have to resign from their seats.

Secondly, there is la grande pensee of General de Gaulle. Precisely because the citizens and their representatives remain divided, and because the cabinets will in the final analysis continue to depend on Parliament, there must be above all the other institutions of the state "a national arbiter far removed from political bickering."

Similarly, three hundred years ago, Richelieu had warned his King that only a monarchical strait-jacket could keep together a fickle and undisciplined nation. In de Gaulle's constitution, the President of the Republic, elected by a College of about 75,000 citizens (including Parliament and delegates of France's territorial subdivisions), will ensure "the regular operation of France's institutions" and guarantee "the continuity of the State."

He is not supposed to be a policy-maker, a guide, a Legislator a la Rousseau, but a constitutional and national conscience: the man who sees to it that the political community of France survives in spite of all the accidents of history. His power of arbitration consists mainly of two weapons: the right to dissolve the National Assembly, and the right to take almost unlimited emergency measures in case of extreme danger to the state.

There is another reason for the creation of a strong Presidency. The President of the Republic will be the head of the "Community." This is the name given to the Federal Commonwealth which will be established between the French Republic and its present overseas territories (among which Algeria is not included since it is legally a set of departments incorporated into the Republic).