Provisions for Community Flexible

The provisions which deal with the Community are generous, imaginative and flexible. Any overseas territory which rejects the Constitution becomes independent, althought it can still later on sign an agreement of association with France. Any territory which chooses to remain within the Community can become a member state, and it can always pull out later.

Federal institutions are created: the President of the Republic, a Senate composed of delegates of the Republic's Parliament and of the member states' legislatures, and a Court of Arbitration.

Althought the Constitution enumerates the areas over which these federal institutions have jurisdiction, implementation is left to future agreements between France and the other members.

Will de Gaulle's Constitution, the twelfth since 1789 by my count, succeed in giving to the Fifth Republic a longer and better life than the four previous ones enjoyed?

No Danger to Democracy

The new document does not endanger democracy in France. De Gaulle himself, who is likely to be the first President of the new Republic, is neither a demagogue nor an autocrat. The institution of the Republic, in spite of what many critics of the Constitution declare, can hardly serve as a springboard for dictatorship. The emergency powers are described so minutely that they cannot really be used except in situations such as the fall of the Third Republic in June, 1940, or like the fall of the Fourth last May--circumstances in which a "national arbiter" might prove indispensable.

The control of the civil service and of the armed forces, as well as the definition of policy, remain the attributes of the cabinet. The Premier is selected by the President, but this was already the case under the last two Republics, and the Premier cannot operate without Parliament's support.

Public liberties and the free competition of parties are guaranteed by the Constitution.

Indeed, the only justified misgivings lie in the opposite direction. De Gaulle's Constitution, rather than achieving a perhaps impossible synthesis between the General's two assumptions, merely juxtaposes them. La Fontaine's fable of the pot of iron and the pot of clay comes to the mind: the possibilities of division and dispersion remain greater than the chances of unity and "arbitration." The two series of innovations designed to strengthen the Executive look more impressive than they are.

Parliament Could By-pass Barriers

First, with regard to the relations between Parliament and the government, many of the barriers erected in order to contain the former can probably be by-passed. Comparable devices introduced by the Constitution of 1946 have proved useless. To be sure, they were much less daring, but they had appeared very impressive in 1946. Unruly parties find all too easily ways of overthrowing cabinets without resorting to the difficult procedure of motions of no confidence.

The Constitution creates a "Constitutional Council" whose task will consist of reviewing the constitutionality of laws and of Parliament's standing orders. But this Council will not be a very big obstacle to a reassertion of Parliament's supremacy, if such a reassertion takes the form of unwritten customs and trusts, as it did in the past.

Secondly, the austere and decisive Presidency of the Republic is more a theoretician's dream than a practical remedy. Should the "national arbiter" refuse to accept the resignation of a cabinet whenever the Premier has not been overthrown by a motion of no confidence, even though Parliament has made the Premier's life impossible, or should the President dissolve the Assembly whenever it has paralyzed the government, then a move which the President might interpret as a pure act of arbitration "designed to insure the normal functioning of the institutions" will inevitably become a hot political issue.

Disolution of Dubious Value