“The Dynamics of Executive Approval in Fifth Republic France...
Transcript of “The Dynamics of Executive Approval in Fifth Republic France...
“The Dynamics of Executive Approval in Fifth Republic France: A Preliminary Empirical Analysis”*
Richard S. Conley Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science University of Florida 234 Anderson Hall P.O. Box 117325
Gainesville, FL 32611 (352) 392-0262 x 297
[email protected] http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/rconley
Abstract
This article is the first to develop a theoretical framework for systematically testing the dynamics of aggregate, monthly presidential and prime ministerial approval in Fifth Republic France (1959-2003). The empirical model combines general economic trends, “rally effects” from presidential foreign policy/military actions, socio-cultural factors specific to French political life, including domestic strife and strikes, as well as the three experiences of cohabitation or “divided government,” to gauge changes in monthly public approval for the five French presidents spanning de Gaulle to Chirac and their prime ministers. The results of the time-series analysis suggest that many of the factors presumed to affect presidential approval in the U.S., notably the state of the economy, impact French presidents’ approval in a similar way. However, French presidents do not gain a significant short term boost from either foreign/military actions or from their annual Bastille Day interview. Instead, domestic strife, such as terrorist attacks in the homeland by international groups or regional independence movements (e.g., Corsica, Brittany), produce a more substantive short-term rally effect. National strikes, frequently provoked by governmental policies opposed by France’s formidable unions, drive down approval significantly in the short-term for both the president and the prime minister. Finally, caeteris paribus, both Mitterrand and Chirac won the public opinion duel vis-à-vis opposition prime ministers. The condition of cohabitation— when the opposition party or coalition of opposition parties controls the legislature— enabled Mitterrand and Chirac to reposition themselves for their respective reelection victories in 1988 and 2002. * Author gratefully acknowledges grants provided by the Department of Political Science, University of Florida, and Dr. Gayle Zachmann, Director of the University of Florida Paris Research Center, for this research. The research was completed in Summer 2003 at the Université Aix-Marseille III (Aix-en-Provence, France) and Fall 2003 at the Centre américain de Sciences-Po and the University of Florida Paris Research Center in Paris, France. Paper prepared for the Southern Political Science Association Conference, New Orleans, LA, January 7-10, 2004.
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Introduction
Despite constitutional and developmental similarities between Fifth Republic France and
the United States, little comparative analysis of presidential politics in the two countries exists.1
In both nations executive approval is a constant subject of interest in the press and among the
public. But do the dynamics of French presidents’ public approval approximate those for U.S.
presidents? And do the factors that affect French presidents’ approval similarly structure prime
ministers’ approval?
To date, these vital questions have not been systematically analyzed by French or Anglo-
American political scientists. The French political science literature, rooted in a tradition of
constitutional studies and public law rather than quantitative analysis, lends largely anecdotal
insight into individual presidents’ and prime ministers’ public approval trends. Moreover, the
major French survey organisations, and the annual publications they spawn, provide mostly
descriptive evidence to explain patterns— sometimes with the aid of current and former
government officials whose party leaders are the subject of the surveys under analysis.2
This article is the first to develop a framework for testing the dynamics of aggregate,
monthly presidential (and prime-ministerial) approval in Fifth Republic France (1959-2003).
The empirical model combines general economic trends, “rally around the flag effects, socio-
cultural factors specific to French political life, and the three experiences of cohabitation or
“divided government,” to gauge monthly changes in executive approval for the five French
presidents spanning de Gaulle to Chirac, and their respective prime ministers.
The analysis permits an implicit comparison of the variables affecting French presidents’
public approval with their American counterparts. The results of the time-series analysis suggest
that many of the factors presumed to affect presidential approval in the U.S., notably the state of
the economy, impact French presidents’ approval in a similar way. However, French presidents
do not gain a significant, short-term boost from either foreign/military actions or from their
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annual Bastille Day interview— an analogy to U.S. presidents’ State of the Union Address.
Instead, domestic strife, such as terrorist attacks in the homeland by international groups or
regional independence movements (e.g., Corsica, Brittany), produce a more substantive positive
rally effect. Negative events, such as national strikes and protests, frequently provoked by
governmental policies opposed by France’s formidable unions, drive down approval significantly
in the short-term— and also negatively impact evaluations of French prime ministers. Finally,
caeteris paribus, the approval ratings of both Mitterrand and Chirac benefited from the incidence
of opposition control of the legislature— as did, ironically, their prime ministers under
cohabitation. Yet the French condition of “divided government” apparently furnished greater
advantages for Mitterrand and Chirac in their respective reelection bids in 1988 and 2002
compared to their prime ministerial challengers.
This article unfolds in several stages. The first section provides an overview of the
French dual executive and the import of presidential “domination” of the prime minister in the
realm of public approval. The second section presents a comparative synopsis of French
presidents’ and prime ministers’ approval from January 1959-August 2003 and theories that
account for changes in public approval. The third section details the methodology for gauging
the dynamics of monthly public approval for French presidents and their prime ministers. The
fourth section discusses the results of the empirical analysis. The concluding section offers some
additional thoughts on the prospects for extending comparative analysis of the French and U.S.
presidencies.
I. The French Fifth Republic: Towards a Presidential Regime
The French Fifth Republic has often been referred to as “semi-presidential” or a “dyadic”
given a double executive structure (Duverger 1959). In reality, howeve r, the system has moved
decisively in the direction of presidentialism, notwithstanding recent periods of divided partisan
control of the presidency and the National Assembly (Ardant and Duhamel 1999). Presidents
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have come to “dominate” prime ministers, creating an imbalance that has prompted some
scholars who take a “strict constructionist” view of the Fifth Republic constitution to call for a
reevaluation of institutional powers (Lascombe 2002). Regardless, norms and expectations in
the Fifth Republic have evolved in the direction of a presidency-centered, not parliamentary-
centred, model of executive leadership that accentuates the centrality of public approval for
presidents’ policy and electoral fortunes— particularly in recent periods when the president and
prime minister have been from opposing parties.
Constitutionally, French presidents in the Fifth Republic were supposed to act as “arbiters
of republican institutions.” But Charles de Gaulle, the first president of the Fifth Republic,
quickly dispelled notions that a parliamentary-centered regime would predominate. De Gaulle
swiftly reverted to France’s long tradition of plebiscitarian tendencies. In 1962 he won a
constitutionally-dubious referendum to replace a complex, territorially-based electoral college
system with direct election of the president as a means of enhancing his— and future
presidents’— claims to be the only representative of all the people (Ehrmann 1983, 7-11). He
solidified the presidency and the Palais Élysée, the president’s Paris headquarters, as the locus of
power and the institution to which the electorate looks for policy leadership. Unwittingly,
perhaps, de Gaulle also opened up a greater possibility for divided control of the presidency and
the legislature (see Duverger 1986).
De Gaulle also introduced another imbalance to the co-ordinate positions of the president
and the prime minister for their respective responsibilities. He established the precedent that the
president could “fire” prime ministers at will— as he did Michel Debré and Georges Pompidou,
despite any such formal-constitutional authority (the Fifth Republic Constitution maintains that
the president merely appoints the prime minister, but the latter’s confidence rests in the
parliamentary majority— not the president).3 In sum, de Gaulle effectively placed the prime
minister and the legislature in an inferior institutional position in the Fifth Republic’s
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constitutional order— and the impact on the relationship between presidential and prime
ministerial approval has been palpable. As Parodi (1971) notes, presidents’ approval ratings
typically dominate their prime minister’s— and subsequent presidents have followed de Gaulle’s
exemplar to maintain the dynamic.
As fusibles4 or “fall guys” prime ministers serve at the president’s pleasure and are
expected to act as lightening rods to deflect public anger for unpopular policies away from the
Élysée. Valéry Giscard-d’Estaing (1974-81) required his prime ministers, Jacques Chirac and
Raymond Barre, to sign undated letters of resignation (Cole 1998, 77-78). And as the
experiences of Pierre Mauroy and Édith Cresson under Mitterrand will be shown, when the
prime minister loses public confidence presidents in the Fifth Republic have had few scruples
about forcing their departure before their own popularity may be contaminated.
It is under the condition of outright split-party control of the presidency and the
legislature in the last two decades that the meaning of the “double executive” in France has
become most meaningful. Both Socialist President François Mitterrand and Gaullist President
Jacques Chirac endured divided government— cohabitation in French parlance— at some length.
During periods of cohabitation, the system has approximated dominance by the legislature
envisaged by many of the framers of the Fifth Republic (see Andrews 1982, 25-33). The
president has been placed in a much more inferior position in domestic affairs and has
occasionally sustained challenges by prime ministers to preeminence in de Gaulle’s sacrosanct
domaine réservé (reserved domain) of foreign affairs. Most importantly, the president’s
traditional domination of public approval has been inverted in periods of divided government.
It is precisely because of the president’s weak institutional position under cohabitation
that the public opinion rivalry between the president and the opposition prime minister has taken
on added importance in the last two decades. Like their American counterparts, French
presidents hold a privileged position in terms of media attention with which other political actors
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find it difficult to compete. Presidents have recourse to “go public” (Kernell 1997) and build
grassroots support through strategically-timed use of the bully pulpit and selective criticism of
the opposition prime minister (Bigaut 1995). Media relations have become more important and
public approval figures more prominently in French presidents’ electoral and policy calculus (see
Kaid et al. 1991). In their public relations duel with opposition prime ministers, Presidents
Mitterrand (1986-88) and Chirac (1997-2002) used institutional prerogatives and their symbolic
position as head of state and rassembleur to overtake positive evaluations of prime ministers and
reposition themselves for reelection victories.
Cohabitation is just one of many factors that has influenced variations in executive
approval since the 1980s. The essential task ahead is to unravel the complex puzzle of approval
dynamics across time from multiple perspectives.
II. Executive Approval in the Fifth Republic: A Synopsis
The difficulties in assembling monthly data on executive approval in France are
significant. No single organisation, such as Gallup in the United States, has tracked approval and
publicly made available monthly data for the duration of the Fifth Republic. Historical data are
not readily available on the Internet and are scattered across scholarly volumes.
The time-series of approval ratings for this analysis was pieced together from several
sources.5 The Paris-based firm SOFRES provides monthly data on its Internet site from 1978 to
the present. SOFRES also provided data for the period 1974 -77.6 Monthly data for Charles de
Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, and their prime ministers, were culled from Sondages: Revue
Française d’Opinion Publique published under the auspices of the Institut Français de l’Opinion
Publique (IFOP) between 1959-78, and from Les Français et de Gaulle, also published in
collaboration with IFOP.
[Figure 1]
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Figure 1 presents executive approval data spanning all five presidents and seventeen
prime ministers in the Fifth Republic. Several important distinctions are notable for the forty-
four year period covered in the charts.
First, early presidents in the Fifth Republic maintained relatively stable public approval
trends and finished their terms with a level of popularity nearly as high as when they took office.
De Gaulle and Pompidou began and ended their terms above 50 percent, despite some notable
peaks and valleys for de Gaulle.
Second, greater volatility in the initial and final approval ratings for the subsequent three
presidents— Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand, and Jacques Chirac— is clearly
visible in Figure 1. Giscard narrowly prevailed over Mitterrand in the second round of the 1974
presidential election. Chirac’s candidacy and divisions on the right had left him in second place
after the first round of voting. Giscard subsequently took office with the lowest approval rating
of all presidents in the Fifth Republic, at just 44 percent, and did not recover by the end of his
septennat. A precipitous decline in public approval for Mitterrand and Chirac in their first terms
is also noteworthy. Both presidents began their terms well above 60 percent but fell below 40
percent within 18 to 24 months. Mitterrand and Chirac gradually recovered to position
themselves for respective reelection victories in 1988 and 2002, though Mitterrand left office in
1995 the most unpopular president— below 40 percent— a record for presidents in the Fifth
Republic. Scandals surrounding financial dealings, the suicide of former Prime Minister Pierre
Bérégovoy, and revelations about his role in the Vichy government and that he had a “second
family” contributed to this dubious distinction (see Thody 1998, 118-25).
Third, the data show that across the Fifth Republic prime ministerial ratings tend to track
presidential approval in the aggregate. Per se, however, presidential approval does not offer
much of an explanation for changes in prime ministers’ public confidence over time (r=.20).7 A
more important tendency is that prime ministers appointed at the beginning of the president’s
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first or second septennat appear to benefit from the president’s “honeymoon” period or état de
grâce (Parodi 1997, 92-93).
Another trend is that until the mid-1980s, prime ministerial approval was “dominated” by
the president’s ratings: The approval level of the president consistently outpaced the prime
minister (Parodi 1971, 129-51). Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius broke the trend briefly
from 1984-85 before the legislative elections of 1986 brought about the defeat of the Socialist
government and the first cohabitation. Finally, it is only in the last two incidences of
cohabitation— with centre-right Prime Minister Édouard Balladur (1993-95) and Socialist Prime
Minister Lionel Jospin (1997-2002)— that the prime minister’s approval consistently trumped the
president’s ratings.
Which factors explain the relationship between presidential and prime ministerial
approval? Periods of cohabitation notwithstanding, the president’s domination of the prime
minister reflects the fundamental basis of Gaullist presidentialism. Elected by direct universal
suffrage and able to change prime ministers at will, the president is the locus of decision-making
and director of the contours of governmental priorities (Parodi 1997, 94).
If prime ministers appointed at the beginning of the president’s first or second septennat
garner relatively higher levels of approval, it may be because they enjoy somewhat greater
latitude compared to their successors. Presidents have typically dissolved the National Assembly
following their electoral victories if legislative elections were not otherwise scheduled.
Presidents tend to appoint prime ministers from the bloc of deputies who were most supportive
in the second round of legislative elections. The appointment of the prime minister in these
circumstances constitutes a more or less “constrained choice” on the part of the president. Later
appointments between legislative elections offer the president far greater discretion. Subsequent
prime ministers are often viewed as the “men and women of the president” (Portelli 1997, 22-
23).
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Periods of cohabitation may invert the president’s domination of the prime minister
because of the latter’s own electoral legitimacy. The first two cohabitations (1986, 1993)
occurred at regularly scheduled legislative elections. The third (1997) was the result of President
Chirac’s disastrous decision to dissolve the National Assembly prematurely without offering a
sufficient reason for his actions (Goldey 1998). All three legislative elections that produced an
opposition government were widely regarded as repudiations of the president and his
parliamentary majority. It is under these conditions that the prime minister, as head of the
parliamentary regime, appears to sustain a stronger electoral legitimacy than the president in the
court of public opinion, though this dynamic did not enable Prime Ministers Chirac, Balladur, or
Jospin to successfully challenge the incumbent president in their immediate electoral bids for the
Elysée following periods of cohabitation.8 Figure 1 alludes to a potential explanation. The data
show that the first and third cohabitations benefited not only the prime minister’s public approval
but also the president’s. A central puzzle is thus why prime ministerial and presidential approval
have tended to positively co-vary under cohabitation.
The French political science literature offers much anecdotal evidence to explain the
highs and lows of individual presidents’ and prime ministers’ popularity. Many studies
emphasize economic trends, domestic strife, and “rally effects” from international crises. Prime
ministers are believed to bear the brunt of negative evaluations of the economic context, though
presidents cannot escape responsibility for the broad contours of governmental policies (Fontaine
1994). Giscard and his prime ministers are thought to have been negatively affected by the
combined effects of rising unemployment and the energy crisis— crises respondents believed
would only worsen in the mid-1970s (Sondages 1976, 22-23). Similarly, Parodi (1988, 173-74)
attributes Prime Minister Chirac’s short-term slide in public approval during the first
cohabitation to civil discontent in education and a national strike by the French National
Railways in late 1986 and early 1987. In a like manner, the parallel erosion in support for
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President Chirac and his first Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, from 1995-97 is believed to have
been provoked by negative evaluations of economic policies, scandals, and national strikes
(Portelli 1998). Only Prime Minister Édouard Balladur, widely hailed for his “low-key” and
non-conflictual leadership style during the second cohabitation, appears to have held relatively
higher public approval for much of his premiership despite an erosion in the national economy
(Dupoirier and Grunberg 1993).
Periods of international crisis or domestic terrorism are thought to yield rally effects, but
cursory evidence suggests they are rather ephemeral in the French context. Ralliements autour
du drapeau (“rally ’round the flag effects”) also do not appear to extend to prime ministers, who
are charged much more with domestic affairs. As chief of state, the president is the symbol of
French foreign policy and the guardian of republican institutions (see Zarka 1992, 242 -45).
François Mitterrand apparently benefited from a short-term rally effect during the Gulf War
crisis between late summer 1990 and early Spring 1991, though the phenomenon did not mitigate
Prime Minister Michel Rocard’s declining popularity for domestic policies (Duhamel 1992;
Lellouche 1991). Mitterrand’s subsequent decision to sack Rocard and hand Matignon to Édith
Cresson despite any domestic crisis, followed by Cresson’s willingness to include the French
Communist Party in her government and a series of policy missteps and civil strife, rapidly left
her the most unpopular prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic (Duhamel and Jaffré
1992).
These scattered hypotheses are comparable to well-established theories about changes in
executive approval in the U.S., even if the American political science literature is far more rich
in the empirical modeling of public opinion trends. Econometric models have shown that the
general state of the economy substantively affects approval levels. Presidents Ford, Carter, and
particularly George H.W. Bush, are notable examples of presidents’ app roval ratings suffering
rather dramatically from the poor state of the economy (Brace and Hinckley, 1993). The
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economic context weighs significantly on American presidents’ reelection chances, and Lewis-
Beck and Rice (1992) have shown similar effects for French presidents. Moreover, it is a well-
established fact that U.S. presidents receive a temporary boost during periods of military action
abroad or international crisis. As Ragsdale (2000, 44) points out, however, short wars and
military actions are most likely to produce positive effects while long, bloody conflicts like
Vietnam may have an inverse effect. Third, negative events, often out of the president’s control,
can also reduce approval levels (Brace and Hickley, 1991). In the American context such
nondiscretionary events may include domestic unrest, racial violence, and protests against wars
like those suffered by Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam. Finally, presidential approval tends to
suffer from a time/competence paradox. Decisions taken by presidents inevitably disappoint
some, and their approval declines over the months. The president’s administrative effectiveness
and competence, however, increase with time. Thus, as Thomas Cronin and Michael Genovese
(1998, 108) note, “The president’s po wer is usually at its zenith early in the terms, when
knowledge is the lowest.”
The diffuse conjectures offered in the French literature on executive approval beg the
question of which generalizable claims can be made across time about executive approval. The
objective of the analysis that follows is to model the effects of economic conditions, rally effects,
and negative domestic events on presidential and prime ministerial approval. The goal is to
systematize the study of approval dynamics common across the Fifth Republic. The analysis
makes implicit comparisons to U.S. presidents, taking into account socio-political differences in
the French context.
III. Methodology
The empirical model for evaluating changes in French presidents’ approval replicates
variables frequently employed in the analysis of public opinion of U.S. presidents. The structure
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of the equation is ordinary least squares (OLS) regression combining continuous and dummy
variables. The equation may be expressed as follows:
PP=a+ß1(Unemployment)+ß2(Time)+ß3(Rally)+ß4(Strife)+ß5(Strikes)+ß6(Bastille)+ ß7(President)+ß8(Cohabitation) + e Where:
PP is the president’s monthly approval rating;
Unemployment is the monthly unemployment rate, ranging from a low of 1.2% (February 1961) to a high of 12.07% (March 1994); Time is the president’s month in office at the time of the monthly poll; the data range from 40 to 84 months; Rally is a dummy variable for the month in which the president takes a military action or there is an international crisis; Strife is a dummy variable for the month in which a domestic or international terrorist incident took place in metropolitan France or Départements d’Outre-Mer/Territoires d’Outre-Mer such as New Caledonia; Strikes is a dummy variable for the month(s) in which a major national strike or protest took place; Bastille is a dummy variable for the month of July in which presidents give their annual Bastille Day televised interview; President is a dummy variable indicating individual presidents’ first term in office; Cohabitation is a dummy variable for periods during which the opposition party of the president, or coalition of opposition parties, controls the National Assembly; e is the error term for the equation.
Unemployment. The theoretical reasons for including unemployment in the model are
straightforward. As this key indicator rises, presidential approval should decline. Since the mid-
1970s France has suffered a structural unemployment problem more grave than other members
of the European Union (EU). Beginning with the oil crisis and ensuing high inflation of the
1970s, unemployment nearly tripled under Giscard’s septennat from 2.7 percent at the beginning
of his term to 7.5 percent by May 1981. Unemployment reached double -digits under Mitterrand
in September 1986, despite early plans for nationalisations and the president’s about-face with
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austerity measures by 1983 (Christofferson 1991). Since the mid-1980s unemployment hovered
between 8.5 and just above 12 percent for most of Mitterrand’s second term and Chirac’s first
term. The EU stability pact has arguably complicated French attempts to redress economic
stagnation through fiscal policies (de Bossieu 2002, 6-12). Member countries in the Euro zone
must maintain a budget deficit of less than 3.0% of gross domestic product (GDP)— which
provoked a crisis between the Raffarin Government and the EU Council of Ministers in Fall
2003 when it was clear France would exceed that threshold for another consecutive year.
Monthly unemployment rates come from several sources. For the period 1959-1967, data
are not readily available from the Ministry of Labor (Ministère du Travail) or standard
governmental statistical compilations. The figures for this period were calculated by the author
from raw data provided in the Statistiques du Travail et de la Sécurité Sociale, which was
published monthly during that period by the Ministère des Affaires Sociales. The data are
housed at the INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques)
headquarters in the Parisian suburb of Malakoff. Data for 1968-2002 are from the Annuaire
rétrospectif de la France, 1948-88 (1990) and from the INSEE web site.
Time in office. Measuring presidents’ time in office gauges the impact of decisions over
time and gauges relative “honeymoon” effects. In the American context, Kernell (1978)
contends that time only measures “time” and has dubious explanatory power. However,
presidential decisions taken over the course of their terms are widely thought to disappoint many
in the electorate and contribute to a decline in popularity even as the president’s policy
“competence” may increase.
The metric employed in the model is each president’s months in office for each term.
Before constitutional change by popular referendum in 2000 that reduced the president’s term to
5 years (quinqennat) effective with the 2002 election, presidents in the Fifth Republic served 7
years (septennat). The minimum value is 40, and the maximum value is 84. Not all presidents
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have served out their full terms. De Gaulle resigned abruptly in April 1969, four years into his
second term, the day after voters rejected his referendum on Senate reform in April 1969.
Georges Pompidou died in office in 1974, 5 years into his term.9
Rally effects. Rally effects comprise major international crises and presidential events,
including autonomous troop deployments (except for the Gulf War). Foreign observers may be
surprised by the number of independent French military actions abroad in the Fifth Republic.
French presidents have been particularly active in sending troops to former colonial interests in
francophone Africa, including recent peacekeeping missions to the Côte d’Ivoire and the Congo.
Data for rally effects from 1959-1995 were culled from La Cinquième République 1958-1995:
L’Histoire au jour le jour, Le Monde Dossiers et Documents. Data for 1996-2002 were
assembled using the searchable archives of the Paris daily Le Monde and annual Dossiers et
Documents published by Le Monde, which traces major events of the year For this period,
events which received the attention of at least 3 articles were included.10 A complete list of the
data is provided in Appendix 1.
Domestic strife. Domestic and international terrorism has been a much greater and
continuing problem in France than in the U.S. The phenomenon began in the mid-1970s.
Attacks on metropolitan French soil have come not just from international terrorist organisations
but also frequently from regional groups, most notably Corsican and Bretagne nationalists.
Perhaps the most stunning event in the last decade was the assassination of the Prefect Claude
Érignac in Corsica in 1998. In similar fashion to the coding for rally effects, data for
international and domestic terrorist incidents were assembled from La Cinquième République
1958-1995: L’Histoire au jour le jour, Le Monde Dossiers et Documents and the Paris daily Le
Monde. Like international crises and military actions, domestic terrorism incidents are expected
to have a short-term, positive effect on presidents’ monthly approval. The list of domestic strife
incidents is furnished in Appendix 2.
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Strikes. France has a long history of étatism which is beyond the scope of this article (see
Descamps 1972; Moriaux 1982). But it is clear that France’s formidable unions (syndicats)
frequently view presidents’ and prime ministers’ attempts to reform state functions as
fundamental attacks on acquis sociaux (entitlements) attained over time. The recurrent problem
of national strikes, student demonstrations, and civil strife in the public sector reflects an
ingrained suspicion of public officials that complicates governance (Safran 2003, 60-61;
Hoffman 1994). One central difficulty for presidents and prime ministers is that public
sympathy typically sides with the protestors, not the government— whether it is a question of the
student protests of May 1968 (Kravetz 1968) or the intermittents’ (theatre performers’) actions
that canceled cultural festivals around the country in Summer 2003. 11 Strikes and major
demonstrations should therefore have a significantly negative short-term impact on presidential
and prime ministerial approval.
Strike data were obtained from Annuare rétrospectif de la France, séries longues 1948-
1988 published by INSEE and from Lenormand Céline, Chronologie indicative de l’histoire du
movement ouvrier français de la Révolution française à la fin des années 2000. These data
include major strikes and demonstrations. A complete list of the strike events is provided in
Appendix 3.
Bastille Day Interview. The president’s annual, televised Bastille Day interview with
select national news reporters on 14 July is the closest analogy to American presidents’ State of
the Union Address. The occasion casts the president into the media spotlight and provides an
opportunity for him to announce new proposals and take credit for accomplishments. It also
furnishes a forum to criticize the opposition prime minister under conditions of cohabitation
(Elgie 2002, 306). American presidents usually receive a short-term “bounce” from their State of
the Union Address. The Bastille Day interview is included to examine whether the same
dynamic holds for French presidents.
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First term presidents. As Figure 1 showed, not all presidents begin or end their terms
with equivalent levels of popularity. Some benefit from a larger état de grâce (honeymoon).
Caeteris paribus, the inclusion of dummy variables for presidents’ first term tests knowing
whether de Gaulle or Chirac, for example, is president accounts for variations in approval above
and beyond economic, rally, and time-decay effects. Dummy variables offer a “stylized” or
aggregate account of individual presidents’ approval compared to their cohorts.
Cohabitation. The French context of divided government epitomizes the battle for public
opinion between the president and prime minister. As noted in Figure 1, prime ministers’
approval surpassed that of Mitterrand (1993-95) and Chirac (1997-2002) in the last two
incidences of cohabitation. Yet these presidents saw their approval increase compared to periods
of unified control. Dummy variables for periods of cohabitation are employed to gauge more
precisely the relative effect of a divided executive on presidential (and prime ministerial)
approval, controlling for other variables.
Prime Ministers’ Approval Analysis
The approval model for prime ministers in the Fifth Republic is identical to the
presidential model with only a few exceptions. First, dummy variables for periods of
cohabitation were dropped. Dummy variables for individual prime ministers capture not only
cohabitation effects but other effects not measured by the continuous variables in the model that
are particular to the tenure of several occupants of the Hôtel Matignon. Second, the prime
ministerial model was divided across two periods— the de Gaulle/Pompidou era and the Giscard-
Mitterrand-Chirac era— precisely to avoid colinearity problems in light of the large number of
prime ministers in the Fifth Republic (17).
As the narrative takes up in greater detail below, the inclusion of dummy variables for
individual prime ministers enables an evaluation of which leaders were far more or less popular
than economic conditions, strike activity, or the time-decay function would suggest. In
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particular, political scandal and prime ministers’ challenges to presidential status and authority
explain precipitous declines in public confidence for such prime ministers as Raymond Barre and
Édith Cresson, noted in Figure 1.
IV. Results
The results of the models for presidential and prime ministerial approval are shown in
Tables 1 and 3, respectively. 12 For both tables, Newey-West standard errors are reported to
correct for a violation of assumptions in the regression analyses. For the presidential approval
model the Durbin-Watson statistic of .58 and the Cook-Weisberg statistic of 1.96 (p < .16)
following standard ordinary least squares (OLS) regression suggest evidence of autocorrelation
of the residuals and moderate heteroskedascity. Visual inspection of the residuals plotted against
the predicted values confirms the presence of autocorrelation. Similarly, for the prime
ministerial approval model divided between the de Gaulle/Pompidou and
Giscard/Mitterrand/Chirac eras, the Durbin-Watson statistic is .30 and .49, respectively. The
Newey-West procedure assumes that the error structure of the models is heteroskedastic and
possibly autocorrelated up to some lag. Standard errors are generated with a heteroskedasticity -
consistent covariance matrix that corrects for the problem of under-estimating the standard errors
(see Davidson & McKinnon 1993, 552).
From Stability to Instability: Presidential Approval from de Gaulle to Chirac
The results in Table 1 confirm the majority of hypotheses of the study. The state of the
economy drives down presidential approval rather significantly, and presidents do tend to lose
public confidence over time. Similarly, major strikes and demonstrations carry a negative effect
on presidential approval. Rally events from major presidential foreign policy events and military
actions show a positive correlation to public approval, however, they do not reach statistical
significance. Incidents of domestic strife, on the other hand, yield a short-term gain in public
confidence. Finally, the analysis confirms that Mitterrand (1st term) and Chirac saw their public
18
approval increase under conditions of cohabitation, controlling for other factors. Let us now
examine these findings in more detail.
[Table 1]
The constant in the model in Table 1 suggests that all things being equal, presidents in the
Fifth Republic can expect an initial approval rating in the mid-60s. The coefficients for
individual presidents show that knowing whether de Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard, Mitterrand, or
Chirac held the presidency does not explain much of the variation in approval dynamics (though
Chirac was more unpopular than the rest at the beginning of his first term). Instead, economic
conditions, as measured by unemployment, and have become major factors in the instability of
public approval ratings for later presidents, compounded by negative public evaluations due to
strikes.
Each increase of 1 percent in monthly unemployment yields a net loss of just under 1.2
percent in presidents’ public confidence. The effect is most pronounced for Giscard, Mitterrand,
and Chirac. To highlight the importance of the economic context, Table 2 presents the “mean
effects” of unemployment on monthly approval ratings across time by multiplying the coefficient
by the maximum, minimum, and average values for the indicator. The data accentuate that
during the immediate post-World War II economic boom, de Gaulle and Pompidou reaped the
benefits in terms of public approval. With unemployment consistently under 3 percent from
1959-74, public confidence in the first two presidents of the Fifth Republic was barely affected.
This scenario contrasts mightily with Mitterrand and Chirac, in particular. Using the
constant of 66 percent in Table 1 as a baseline measure and holding all other variables at 0, Table
2 indicates that on average, structural unemployment alone drove their ratings down to the mid-
50s. The average, net loss for Mitterrand was just above 11 percent and for Chirac slightly
greater than 12 percent— double the effect for Giscard. Alas, negative evaluations of the
19
employment context have been a principal albatross around the necks of recent presidents of the
Fifth Republic.
[Table 2]
Presidents must also be wary of provoking major strikes and demonstrations with
unpopular policies led by their prime ministers. Such events, often at the behest of public sector
unions, yield a short-term decline of over 3 percent in the president’s approval. Of course, the
coefficient reported in Table 1 is a “standardized” effect across time. Two presidents— Charles
de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac— were subject to the most fluctuation in public confidence owing
to strikes and demonstrations.
Charles de Gaulle’s presidency was a period of substantive modernization of the French
state and arguably significant progress in terms of social policy. But his two terms were also a
time of intense social conflict. Of the 45 strikes and major demonstrations catalogued between
1959 and 2003, 19 (41%) took plac e during de Gaulle’s reign from 1959-1969— an average of
one strike or major demonstration every five and one-half months. The most memorable set of
strikes took place in May 1968. The student uprising in protest of crowded university settings
subsequently sparked public sector unrest. Inexplicably, de Gaulle departed for Germany to
meet with his confidant General Massu, leaving Prime Minister Pompidou to negotiate a
peaceful settlement to the chaos (Thody 1998, 33-34). De Gaulle’s public approval fell by some
8 points over previous months. Indeed, the model helps explain some of the peaks and valleys in
de Gaulle’s relationship with the public. Visual inspection of Figure 1 shows that general strikes
in April 1961, May 1966, May 1967, and the miners’ s trike of March 1963, were associated with
decreases in public confidence from 2 to 5 percent for the enigmatic president, consistent with
the “stylized” coefficient for strikes in the regression model.
Jacques Chirac ranks second in terms of the frequency of strikes from 1995 through mid-
2003. A total of ten events took place over these eight years for an average of one every ten
20
months. The most pivotal events occurred in 1995 and 1996— the beginning of Chirac’s
septennat— when strikes by transportation workers and truckers in protest of the Juppé
government’s proposed social security reforms paralyzed the nation. Once again, visual
inspection of Figure 1 underscores the validity of the generalized effect of strikes in the model
(Table 1). The advent of these strikes erased Chirac’s état de grâce, already in jeopardy with the
resumption of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, dropping public confidence between 2 and 4
percent in late 1995. By early 1996 Chirac’s turn toward budgetary austerity provoked negative
evaluations of his plans to combat unemployment among no less than 87 percent of survey
respondents (Portelli 1998, 15).
The effects of economic conditions and strike activity underscore that like their American
counterparts, French presidents in the Fifth Republic must “hit the ground running” (Pfiffner
1996) to maximize leverage during their honeymoon period while they benefit from a surfeit of
public confidence. If the general economic climate takes a heavy toll on approval ratings, time
in office also yields a significantly negative effect.13 For approximately every 6 months in
office presidents lose a full percentage point in public confidence. Put another way, a president
serving out his full septennat of 84 months can expect a net loss of about 14 points as the next
election approaches. French political analysts often make reference to the president’s “100
days,” and for good reason. The difficult, ineluctable decisions presidents must make are bound
to alienate some in the electorate and disappoint others. As in the American case, presidents’
resources are greatest when their competence level is arguably weakest, at the beginning of their
terms. All told, the time-decay function, combined with difficult economic conditions since the
1970s, explains the greater propensity for the steeper valleys in presidential approval in the post -
Pompidou era.
Presidents cannot count on either symbolic television appearances or international crises
and military actions to reverse the negative impact of economic conditions, strikes, or time-decay
21
effects. American presidents’ major televised addresses often lead to a short-term increase in
public support (see Edwards 2004, 38-39). For French presidents, their annual Bastille Day
interview, however symbolic, does not yield a similar effect. Moreover, presidents in the Fifth
Republic do not benefit from events thought to produce a “rally ’round the flag” effect. The
coefficient for rally events of just over 1 percent does not reach statistical significance.
Employing interaction terms for individual presidents and rally events does not change the
outcome. The failure of such actions to boost public approval constrains presidents’ ability to
rebound from negative evaluations of the economy and the impact of civil unrest.
Which factors explain why, across the history of the Fifth Republic, neither military
actions, largely confined to the African continent, nor significant international crises bolster
confidence in the president? Mitterrand’s support for the American-led coalition in the Gulf War
of 1991 is a case in point about public ambivalence toward military actions. The fourth French
president of the Fifth Republic was successful in mobilizing public support behind the
American-led coalition. His public approval increased from the upper 50s during the crisis in
Kuwait and peaked in Spring 1991 in the low-60s. Nevertheless, this “bounce” was effectively
far less compared to President Bush and Prime Minister Major (Zarka 1992).
Analyses of opinion toward the Gulf War specifically suggest that a general contradiction
specific to French political culture may explain the dynamic. On the one hand, Mitterrand
masterfully employed the symbolism of his “chief of state” role through public outreach to
marshal unity behind the allied coalition (Duporier 1992, 126; 144). On the other hand, many
French simultaneously evidenced a strong desire to avoid participation in any war that might
entail potentially negative economic consequences (Lellouche 1991). A strong majority of
French expected major protests against the war at the outset of allied military actions. Moreover,
a majority of younger French (18-25) expressed solidarity or sympathy with the pacifist
movement, which has roots in France’s libertarian as well as Christian political traditions
22
(Dupoirier 1992; Winock 1991). The lesson of the Gulf War is that while presidents may be able
to effectively galvanize public support behind military actions, there remains a more profound,
underlying skepticism of such actions among the French compared to Americans that undercuts
significant rally effects.
Domestic strife, however, does yield a moderate increase in public confidence in French
presidents. Terrorism on French soil perpetrated by international- or domestic-based groups
spurs a short-term gain of 2 percent in public confidence following such incidents. The effect is
entirely consistent with the president’s status as the symbolic and constitutional guardian of
republican institutions in the Fifth Republic. When the integrity of the nation has come under
attack, the public has rallied around presidents’ calls for national unity and the redoubling of
efforts to bring the architects of terrorist attacks to justice. During the numerous terrorist
incidents in Paris the mid-1980s and civil unrest in New Caledonia Mitterrand actively sought to
reassure French citizens. Similarly, the increase in terrorist activities by Corsican nationalists in
the late 1990s prompted steadfast condemnations by Jacques Chirac, a return to the leitmotif of
the “social fracture” in France, and a focus on law and order. Both Chirac and Interior Minister
Nicolas Sarkozy were widely hailed in the métropole for the ultimate arrest in summer 2003 of
Yvan Colonna, the suspected assassin of Corsican Prefect Claude Érignac five years earlier
(Gurrey 2003).
If the advent of the first cohabitation in the Fifth Republic raised concerns about a crisis
of the regime, by the third cohabitation there was little question that the French electorate not
only approved of a divided executive but believed the arrangement would function well
(Quermonne 1987). The data in Table 1 confirm that the first and third incidences of
cohabitation boosted presidents’ public approval, controlling for economic conditions, strikes,
and time-decay effects. During the first cohabitation from 1986-88 public confidence in
François Mitterrand increased by nearly 19 percent. Similarly, in the extended period of
23
cohabitation from 1997-2002 Jacques Chirac benefited from a net increase of nearly 13 percent,
compensating for the otherwise negative evaluations that had plagued his early first term (noted
by the individual dummy variable indicating a loss of a little more than 7 percent compared to
other presidents). Only the second cohabitation, with Édouard Balladur as prime minister, did
not reinforce public confidence in the president (discussed in the next section).
Mitterrand’s increase in public support during the first cohabitation stems from several
plausible sources. The president’s popularity had decreased substantially following his volte-
face on economic policy and the austerity measures adopted beginning in 1983. His job approval
reached a nadir during his first septennat in early 1984 (Figure 1). With his popularity
effectively halved compared to 1981, Mitterrand’s côte de confiance was among the lowest for
presidents up to that point— and had likely bottomed out among all but his most fervent
supporters. Replacing the ever-more unpopular Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy with the young,
technocratic Laurent Fabius did not immediately benefit Mitterrand’s own fortunes, though the
appointment was strategic and aimed at repositioning the Socialist Party in the center of the
electorate (Duhamel 1985). The payoff came with Fabius’ ouster and the introduction of
proportional representation in the legislative elections of 1986, which brought about the first
cohabitation. Mitterrand’s popularity immediately rebounded by some 10 points— a seeming
contradiction of the unprecedented institutional arrangement. His popularity remained well
above 50 percent, and occasionally peaked above 60 percent, for the rest of the first cohabitation
(Figure 1).
With the introduction of proportional representation Mitterrand and the Socialists sought
to maximize their own partisan support and simultaneously set a trap for opposition Prime
Minister Chirac. Chirac was forced to manage a very narrow centre-right coalition and the
proportional scheme enabled Jean-Marie Le Pen and Front national to capture 35 seats. Chirac
and his majority coalition were plagued initially by questions about whether to work with Le
24
Pen, and later vexed by the frequently disruptive tactics by the feisty, extreme right leader.
Mitterrand refused to go along with the prime minister’s desire to expedite controversial
legislation by ordonnance (which requires the president’s signature), forcing Chirac to submit
major elements of his programme to the National Assembly through the standard legislative
process. These projets de loi concerning privatizations and employment drew the intense
opposition of the Left and created a forum in which Mitterrand had ample opportunity to critique
the Prime Minister and his majority.
The net effect of the first cohabitation was a negative media focus on Chirac while
Mitterrand dutifully played the role of statesman on foreign and defense policy and selectively
censured the government’s domestic policies (Bigaut 1995, 12). Persistent divisions on the
Right, and the rebound in public confidence in Mitterrand, facilitated the president’s reelection
campaign. The first round of the 1988 election split the vote on the Right between Chirac
(19.95%) and Raymond Barre (16.5%), with Mitterrand culling 34 percent of the v ote. In the
second round Mitterrand prevailed easily over Chirac with 54 percent of the suffrage.
Cohabitation did not work to Mitterrand’s advantage, however, in his second septennat.
Table 1 shows that divided government from 1993-95 had no substantive impact on Mitterrand’s
approval. As Figure 1 showed, Prime Minister Édouard Balladur’s job approval — though it
declined over time— consistently outpaced Mitterrand’s between 10 and 30 percent.
The second cohabitation accentuates the relative political legitimacy of the president and
the prime minister under a transformed electoral context. As noted earlier, scandals certainly
beleaguered public confidence in Mitterrand during his second term. And the economic
downturn, an increase in unemployment, and internecine warfare in the Socialist camp scarcely
aided the president’s standing (Jaffré 1994, 147). Yet the electoral circumstances of cohabitation
cannot be underestimated in analysing Mitterrand’s foundering public approval. The legislative
elections of 1993 constituted a far greater rejection of the president and his party compared to
25
1986. Whereas the Socialists had garnered 32 percent of the national vote in the first round in
1986, they marshaled only 19 percent in 1993— the worst showing since 1958. The decisive
victory of the Right in 1993 prompted far greater support for the notion that Mitterrand should
resign compared to the first cohabitation. And the new majority evidenced greater determination
to push forward with its agenda. As Gérard Grunberg contends, “It is a politically weakened
president who began the second cohabitation. The context of political forces was highly
inauspicious. His only remaining powers were constitutional— no less, but no more. And
François Mitterrand suffered the consequences. He was, for a time, completely silent”
(Grunberg 1994, 42; my translation).
The third cohabitation from 1997-2002 is remarkable for the degree to which presidential
and prime ministerial approval co-varied (Figure 1), even if Jospin led Chirac in terms of job
approval up to several months before the April 2002 presidential contest. Aggregate -level data
can only offer informed hypotheses about the basis for that co-variance, and why Chirac’s
popularity rebounded from a nadir in 1997. Several common interpretations are noteworthy.
The electoral context of the third cohabitation was unique. The victory of the “plural
left” (gauche plurielle) comprised of the Socialists, ecologists, and Communists was widely
interpreted as a more of a personal rebuke of Chirac than of the Right more generally. Neither
Chirac’s Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) nor the centre-right Union pour la
démocratie française (UDF) was institutionally devastated as the Socialists were in 1993. The
two principal rightist parliamentary groups maintained 253 of the 577 seats in the National
Assembly. The defeat nevertheless routed Chirac’s capacity for party leadership of the RPR
specifically and the conservative majority coalition with which he began his septennat in 1995
more generally, precipitating a multitude of schisms and internal struggles amongst rival factions
in the legislature (Bell 2000, 238-40).
26
One explanation for Chirac’s recovery of greater public confidence over time is that the
very weakness of his institutional position under the longest cohabitation in the Fifth Republic
generated ample personal sympathy for him. Ironically, his loss of control over the RPR enabled
him to rise above petty, partisan conflict in a manner consistent with de Gaulle’s exemplar. Ever
the consummate grass-roots campaigner, Chirac won increasingly high marks for his personal
“warmth” and “energy” according to SOFRES surveys. He fell back to the symbolic role of the
president’s head of state functions and only selectively criticized the government’s policies with
which he disagreed most (Elgie 2002, 305-09). Méchet (2002, 26-27) reports that by December
2001 53 percent of survey respondents considered Chirac “the president of all the French,”
though only 43 percent had voted for him in 1995.
Finally, alternative— though not mutually exclusive— interpretations center on policy
accomplishments during cohabitation and the general public outlook. Chirac may have benefited
from positive evaluations of the Jospin government’s popular policies, the objectives of which he
sometimes saluted in the attempt to share credit (35 hour work week, universal health insurance).
Another interpretation hinges on analysts’ focus on the sensitivity between public evaluations of
political leaders in France and the “public mood” (see Dupoirier and Greenberg 1996, 198 -99).
One frequent explanation in the French public opinion literature is that Chirac’s “captive
popularity” was intimately linked to the psychological climate in France, which improved over
the course of the third cohabitation (Witkowski 2000). France’s victory in the World Cup soccer
match in 1998 is routinely cited as having had a profound impact in bolstering citizens’
confidence in the future, which coincided with a moderate upturn in the economy that
advantaged both Jospin and Chirac (Duhamel 1999, 76-77).
Still, it is critical not to overemphasize the effect of cohabitation on Chirac’s job
approval. By spring 2002 his rating was barely above 50 percent and unemployment remained in
double digits. Jospin’s poor campaign for the Élysée, and revelations of his Trotskyite past,
27
damaged his bid for the presidency and clearly aided Chirac. With only 19.9 percent of the vote
in the first round of the 2002 election, Chirac’s was the worst showing for an incumbent
president in the history of the Fifth Republic (see Ponceyri 2002).
Prime Ministerial Approval: The Fortunes of “Fusibles”
Table 3 presents the analysis of prime ministerial approval, divided between the de
Gaulle/Pompidou and Giscard/Mitterrand/Chirac eras. The analysis conveys that many of the
same factors that negatively affect presidential approval, particularly the economy, strikes, and
time in office, have also had a relatively greater impact on public confidence in prime ministers
in recent decades. In addition, the data suggest that prime ministers’ individual style and policy
stances account for the steeper peaks and valleys in job approval.
[Table 3]
Dividing the model by the earlier and latter eras of the Fifth Republic emphasizes two
key dynamics. First, the lower constant in the de Gaull/Pompidou era of 32 percent and the lack
of “individualized” effects confirms the extent of presidential “domination” of prime ministers
for all but Chaban-Delmas in the early period of the Fifth Republic. By contrast, the higher
constant of nearly 57 percent for the later period, combined with greater variation in the
individualized effects of prime ministers, indicates a much greater basis for volatility in prime
ministerial approval. Second, time-decay effects have a much more significant effect in the post-
Pompidou era. The coefficient for prime ministers’ time in office more than doubles across the
two periods. Since the mid-1970s prime ministerial approval has declined more precipitously
compared to the president. For prime ministers serving under Giscard, Mitterrand, and Chirac,
the expected loss of a full percentage point in public confidence occurs in just under four
months.
These data point to a certain “learning” on the part of the public vis-à-vis the dual
executive in the Fifth Republic. The de Gaulle/Pompidou era may well have been critical in the
28
“sorting out” of roles and public evaluations of the Élysée and Matignon. The prime minister
was purposefully endowed with extraordinary legislative tools to surmount party fragmentation,
pass the annual budget, and expeditiously enact the government’s agenda. If the effect of time in
office has doubled in the most recent era, the dynamic reflects an impatience with prime
ministers. Using the immobilism of the Third and Fourth Republics as a basic point de repère
(reference point), the public seemingly has higher expectations of what the occupants at the
Hôtel Matignon should theoretically be able to accomplish in the National Assembly in a short
period of time.
At the same time, the analysis in Table 3 clarifies that presidential and prime ministerial
approval co-vary most in terms of the state of the economy. The public holds both the president
and the prime minister jointly responsible for structural unemployment that has plagued France
since the 1970s. In the post-Pompidou era each increase of 1 percent in the unemployment rate
yields a full percentage drop in prime ministerial approval. The effect is only slightly lower than
for presidents in shown Table 1 (-1.17). By contrast, in the de Gaulle/Pompidou era
unemployment has an inverse and positive (if nominally substantive) effect on prime ministerial
approval, recalling that monthly unemployment ranged from only 1 to 3 percent during the
period.
Prime ministers also share blame with the president for national strikes and major
demonstrations. The negative effect is nearly two points higher (4.80%) in the de
Gaulle/Pompidou era. The sheer number of strikes during de Gaulle’s first and (truncated)
second term furnishes much of the partial explanation. Though de Gaulle is noted for giving his
two longest-serving prime ministers, Debré and Pompidou, broad latitude in leading the National
Assembly (Institut Charles de Gaulle 1990) neither he nor his prime ministers could escape
criticism for unpopular policies that provoked civil unrest.
29
Strikes and demonstrations remain a negative force for prime ministerial approval in the
post-Pompidou era. The negative impact is roughly equivalent to that for presidents— a 3
percent drop for months in which such events occur. The fortunes of Raymond Barre under
President Giscard and Alain Juppé under President Chirac are exemplary. Widely regarded as
the “prime minister of unemployment” (Sondages 1976, 36), Barre suffered low points during
his premiership that were hardly coincidental. They occurred at times of heightened public
turmoil, including several major national strikes and violent confrontations in protest of the
government’s economic agenda in Fall 1976 and Spring 1977. Similarly, Juppé’s unpopular
attempts to reform the social security system led to nationwide public sector strikes as the
economy foundered and unemployment rose (Portelli 1998). Table 3 shows no significant
“individualized” effect for Juppé precisely because the model predicts levels of public approval
in the 30s, accounting for his time in office, an unemployment rate of greater than 10 percent,
and protracted strikes in the Fall of 1996 and 1997.
Periods of cohabitation notwithstanding, one additional factor that explains the typical
“domination” of the president’s approval over the prime minister is that the latter reap no
benefits from rally effects or incidents of domestic strife. Table 3 shows that both variables are
pointed in a negative direction across eras and do not attain statistical significance. Consistent
with the president’s head of state status, to the degree that any limited “rally around the flag”
effects exist, it is around the Élysée— not Matignon— that the French public rallies. Prime
ministers are hard pressed to take the public eye off of economic woes.
The only exception to presidential “dominance” of the prime minister in terms of job
approval in the de Gaulle/Pompidou era is Jacques Chaban-Delmas. The individualized effect
for Chaban of 18 percent is by far the greatest for prime ministers in the first 16 years of the Fifth
Republic. Chaban’s popularity tracked Pompidou’s very closely before plummeting in Summer
1972. Ironically, Chaban’s very popularity may have sown the seeds of his demise. His
30
announcement of plans for the government’s nouvelle société (new or “great” society) agenda
resonated with the public but was made without prior consultation with Pompidou, who felt
upstaged (Damamme 1992, 207-11). The precipitous decline in Chaban-Delmas’ public
approval is a case-in-point about the impact of scandal on prime ministers’ fortunes— and
presidents’ willingness to sack them if they feel negative effects will spill over to the Élysée.
The French newspaper the Le Canard Enchâiné, known for its capacity to ferret out the
unseemly side of French politicians, revealed a series of financial improprieties by the former
mayor of Bordeaux in Spring 1972. These revelations, and the castigation they provoked by the
Left— most notably by François Mitterrand— took a heavy toll on Chaban’s esteem in the court
of public opinion. They also provided a convenient pretext for Pompidou to call for Chaban’s
resignation and shore up Gaullists in the legislature through the appointment of former World
War II military commander Pierre Messmer (for details, see Chastenet and Chastenet 1991, 432-
41).
The “individualized” effects for prime ministers in the post-Pompidou era do not lend
systematic evidence that presidents’ first appointments are any more popular than subsequent
ones, when other factors are controlled. However, the coefficients do yield indirect evidence of
the negative consequences of real or perceived prime ministerial challenges to presidential
authority or popularity that often lead to their voluntary resignation or involuntary “sacking.”
Controlling for the state of the economy, strikes, and time-decay effects, Jacques Chirac’s
approval during his first premiership under Giscard averaged 8 points below the norm.
Embittered relations, personal rivalry, and policy disagreements between Chirac and Giscard led
the prime minister to challenge the president’s “liberalism” on numerous occasions, ultimately
prompting Chirac’s resignation (before Giscard could fire him) and the formation of the RPR
(Bell 2000, 138-40). The data in Table 3 suggest that in the court of public opinion, the disputes
between Matignon and the Élysée damaged esteem for Chirac more than Giscard.
31
Of the seven prime ministers who served under Mitterrand, Michel Rocard was appointed
upon the president’s successful reelection in 1988 and was by far the most popular— though this
popularity was the key to his downfall. The individualized effect of 14.6 percent suggests that
Rocard maintained a much greater level of popularity than prevailing economic conditions
warranted. The prince des sondages (prince of opinion polls), as he was often referred to,
walked a fine line between maintaining support on the Left and governing rather conservatively
in light of the difficult legislative coalition he was charged with managing (Duhamel 1992).
Following the Gulf War, Mitterrand demanded Rocard’s resignation, despite any governmental
crisis. Tensions between Mitterrand and Rocard were well-known (Colombani 1989), and
Mitterrand presumably sacked Rocard to hamper his chances at running for the presidency in
1995 (Thody 1998, 117).
Mitterrand’s decision to replace Rocard with Édith Cresson, the first female prime
minister in the Fifth Republic, was as disastrous as it was historic. As the coefficient (-15.08%)
in Table 3 shows, Cresson’s short-lived premiership (11 months) was, caeteris paribus, the most
unpopular in the post-Pompidou era. Her willingness to include the Communists in the majority
coalition proved a clumsy move that alienated many. Moreover, as Philip Thody (1998, 117)
explains, she was known “mainly for her lack of tact in talking about other countries, describing
the Japanese as having all the characteristics of ants, and opining that all Englishmen must be
homosexuals because none of the men in London turned round to look at her as she walked along
the street.”
The dummy variables for prime ministers serving under cohabitation confirm that
Édouard Balladur and Lionel Jospin enjoyed far greater popularity than the continuous variables
alone in the model predict. Chirac’s conflictual relationship with Mitterrand under the first
cohabitation, and the crisis surrounding ordonnances, robbed the former of a surplus of public
confidence. By contrast, Prime Minister Balladur’s popularity remained higher than expected
32
despite a downturn in the economy and a hike in unemployment from the outset of his
premiership. His reassuring style, desire to avoid protracted conflict with the president, and level
of comfort in televised addresses are thought to have enhanced his position. But most
importantly, long before the elections of 1993, Balladur was widely presumed to be the leader
slated to take up residence at the rue de Varennes and lead the National Assembly. Balladur
seemingly garnered a surfeit of public good will because a strong majority of French expected a
victory for the Right well in advance of the elections and wanted him to take an active role in
governing (Duhamel 1994; Grunberg 1994).
Although difficult to quantify through aggregate level data, a similar effect concerning
positive expectations may explain Jospin’s exceedingly high popularity for much of the third
cohabitation. Having been crushed at the polls in 1993 and having lost the presidency in 1995,
the Socialists saw in Jospin an opportunity to prove they could govern effectively. Jospin’s early
agenda was greeted with significant optimism across the political spectrum. His plans to combat
unemployment and undertake reforms aimed at modernising the state, including legislation
guaranteeing equality of the sexes, allowing civil unions, and undertaking judicial reforms,
resonated with the public (Le Gall 2000, 38-39). The irony is that while Jospin succeeded in
carefully managing the “plural left” coalition in the legislature, his early policy accomplishments
left him without a sufficient platform on which to challenge President Chirac in 2002. Like
Balladur, Jospin was far less adept at cobbling together a national electoral coalition than
managing legislative politics.
Finally, what is the fate of Jean-Pierre Rafarrin, the current prime minister? The model
shows an individualized coefficient of nearly 7 percent through August 2003. Early evaluations
of Raffarin were indeed largely positive. He began his premiership at 64 percent. The stylistic
opposite of Chirac’s first prime minister Alain Juppé a decade earlier, Raffarin’s roots hail from
the rural Poitou-Charentes region and he is not an énarque.14 He is notable for his image as a
33
sincere leader with a strong connection with la France profonde or la France d’en bas— every
day France. Yet, like Juppé, Raffarin has begun to suffer a similar fate. Following a brief
honeymoon, the standard disillusionment with the prime minister set in and general pessimism
about the state of the economy diminished public confidence in his leadership (Pierre-Brossolette
2003, 135-37). Moreover, by Fall 2003 his public appr oval dipped below 40 percent. The
tumultuous strikes of the preceding summer in education, transportation, and by theatre
performers, in addition to protests by tobacco vendors for a hike in cigarette prices in Fall 2003,
have undoubtedly contributed to Raffarin’s declining popularity. Moreover, the prime minister’s
steadfast support for reforming the medical insurance system and his critique of the Jospin
government’s adoption of a 35 hour work week have placed him in the political crossfire.
As President Chirac’s popularity has declined proportionally with Raffarin’s, it is an open
question whether the prime minister’s days are numbered. The relative strength of the Union
pour un mouvement populaire (UMP, Chirac’s presidential party) in the regional elections slated
for March 2004 may be the critical turning point as Chirac eyes the presidential and legislative
elections in 2007 (Barbier and Mandonnet 2003, 86 -87). Looking back to the Juppé experience a
decade earlier, the essential point is that Chirac’s attempts to “package” reforms through a
radically different personality in Raffarin have clearly not resulted in a different outcome— for
the state of the economy and civil turmoil have taken a significant toll on both the president and
the prime minister just as they did in 1995/96.
Conclusions
The objective of this research has been to systematically identify the factors that explain
variation in executive approval in Fifth Republic France. This analysis has demonstrated that
many of the same factors thought to affect U.S. presidents’ public approval also hold true in
France, with the exception of foreign policy rally events and annual televised addresses.
Additionally, socio-political factors unique to France, including strikes and major
34
demonstrations, as well as terrorism on French soil, weigh heavily on president’s approval
fortunes.
The analysis emphasizes the underlying causes for greater volatility in public confidence
in presidents and prime ministers in recent decades. Structural unemployment, and public sector
strikes provoked by presidents’ and/or prime ministers’ attempts to reform the French state and
social policy, have negatively affected public confidence in the dual executive in France,
reducing government’s margin to maneuver and complicating presidents’ reelection bids. These
factors have undoubtedly contributed to the greater frequency of cohabitation, which may
continue to occur despite constitutional reform in 2000. Ironically, two of the three cohabitations
were met with substantial public enthusiasm and arguably enabled both Mitterrand and Chirac to
rebound from low points of their respective septennats.
The results of this research point to many potentially rewarding avenues for future
scholarship. The possibilities for more explicit comparison of French and American presidents’
manipulation of public opinion in different historical eras through case studies seems
appropriate. As revered military heros both de Gaulle and Eisenhower, for example, were
largely successful in portraying themselves as “above the fray” of partisan politics and
marshaling relatively consistent public support. How each president used his public standing to
advance his agenda is of particular interest. In more recent decades, the frequent incidence of
divided government in both systems, while complicating presidents’ agendas, has arguably
opened up opportunities for presidents to recover public confidence in their leadership and re -
position themselves for electoral victory. Comparing the economic and political context
surrounding Bill Clinton’s high public approval during impeachment and Jacques Chirac’s
rebound in the late 1990s merits closer attention.
Finally, with a focus on economic conditions and civil protest, this analysis points to
plausible reasons why recent French presidents and prime ministers have suffered dramatic
35
losses in public confidence. Yet many French scholars also accentuate the relationship between
opinion of political leaders and the “public mood,” typically measured through an index of
optimism and pessimism about the future (Dupoirier and Grunberg 1996, 198-99 Jaffré 1995).
Such data are not available across the totality of the Fifth Republic. But in a simple re-analysis
of Jaffré’s monthly data for Mitterrand’s first term, public mood alone explains nearly half of the
variance in presidential and prime ministerial approval. How presidents and prime ministers
cope with swings in the public psychology and attempt to manipulate their own images is of
paramount interest for future scholarship. Systematic analysis of panel data, not frequently
performed by French political scientists, could be highly useful.
The comparative method is a powerful means to build and test theories of presidential
politics. If French political science is not renowned for quantitative approaches, American
scholars in the United States are equally not accredited for constructing comparative frameworks
of executive politics. Fifth Republic France— despite its separated institutional structure— has
unfortunately been overlooked by all but a few American scholars. Extending comparative
executive research beyond Anglo systems with parliamentary arrangements to systems such as
France with stronger analogies to the American institutional structure is a next logical step in
scholarship on the U.S. presidency, from public opinion to legislative leadership and institutional
behavior.
36
Figure 1
Presidential and Prime Ministerial Approval in Fifth Republic France, 1959-2003
de Gaulle, 1959-69
Pompidou, 1969-74
Giscard, 1974-81
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Dec
-58
Jun-
59
Dec
-59
Jun-
60
Dec
-60
Jun-
61
Dec
-61
Jun-
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Dec
-62
Jun-
63
Dec
-63
Jun-
64
Dec
-64
Jun-
65
Dec
-65
Jun-
66
Dec
-66
Jun-
67
Dec
-67
Jun-
68
Dec
-68
Per
cent
App
rova
l
President Prime Minister
Debre Pompidou
Couve deMurville
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Jun-
69
Aug
-69
Oct
-69
Dec
-69
Feb
-70
Apr
-70
Jun-
70
Aug
-70
Oct
-70
Dec
-70
Feb
-71
Apr
-71
Jun-
71
Aug
-71
Oct
-71
Dec
-71
Feb
-72
Apr
-72
Jun-
72
Aug
-72
Oct
-72
Dec
-72
Feb
-73
Apr
-73
Jun-
73
Aug
-73
Oct
-73
Dec
-73
Feb
-74
Per
cent
App
rova
l
President Prime Minister
Chaban-Delmas
Messmer
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Jun-
74
Sep-
74
Dec
-74
Mar
-75
Jun-
75
Sep-
75
Dec
-75
Mar
-76
Jun-
76
Sep-
76
Dec
-76
Mar
-77
Jun-
77
Sep-
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Dec
-77
Mar
-78
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78
Sep-
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Dec
-78
Mar
-79
Jun-
79
Sep-
79
Dec
-79
Mar
-80
Jun-
80
Sep-
80
Dec
-80
Mar
-81
Perc
ent A
ppro
val
President Prime Minister
Chirac
Barre
37
Figure 1 (continued)
Mitterrand, 1981-95
Chirac, 1995-2003
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Jun-
81
Dec
-81
Jun-
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Dec
-82
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Dec
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Dec
-84
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Dec
-85
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Dec
-86
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Dec
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-89
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Dec
-90
Jun-
91
Dec
-91
Jun-
92
Dec
-92
Jun-
93
Dec
-93
Jun-
94
Dec
-94
Per
cent
App
rova
l
President Prime Minister
Rocard
FabiusChirac
(cohabitation)Mauroy
Cresson Beregovoy
Balladur
(cohabitation)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Jun-
95
Oct
-95
Feb-
96
Jun-
96
Oct
-96
Feb-
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Oct
-97
Feb-
98
Jun-
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Oct
-98
Feb-
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Jun-
99
Oct
-99
Feb-
00
Jun-
00
Oct
-00
Feb-
01
Jun-
01
Oct
-01
Feb-
02
Jun-
02
Oct
-02
Feb-
03
Jun-
03
Perc
ent A
ppro
val
President Prime Minister
Juppe
Jospin
Raffarin (cohabitation)
38
Notes
1 The exceptions in the American political science literature concern comparative presidential elections, including the illuminating analyses by Pierce (1995) and Lewis-Beck and Rice (1992). 2 As one example, Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior under the Raffarin Government at the time of this writing, sought to explain the “state of the right” in SOFRES’ annual volume. See Sarkozy 2000. 3 In 1958, de Gaulle insisted in front of the Consultative Constitutional Committee that the president should not be able to revoke the prime minister’s mandate, notwithstanding a vote of no confidence by the legislature; six years later in a press conference he changed his mind, arguing that the president could, in fact, demand the resignation of the prime minister when the latter’s “tasks had been accomplished” or because the president “no longer found him acceptable.” See Dictionnaire de la Constitution, pp. 558 and 577, respectively. Translation by author. 4 The word “fusible” in French comes from the verb fusiller, literally, to be shot by a firing squad. 5 Monthly public approval ratings are the president’s and prime minister’s aggregate “côte de confiance,” or percentage of respondents who say they have a lot or some confidence in the president’s or prime minister’s performance. Some gaps exist in the time-series for de Gaulle and Pompidou; in addition, monthly polls are often not done in August when most French take their annual vacations. 6 Author is grateful to Stéphanie Breuzard of the Paris office of SOFRES for providing the complete time series data for Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s septennat from 1974-81. 7 The simple regression equation is the following: Prime Ministerial Approval=33.19+.26(Presidential Approval). In other words, each increase of just over 4% in the presidents approval yields an increase in prime ministerial approval of 1%. 8 For details on the difficulties prime ministers encounter in presidential bids, see the comprehensive analysis by Djaguidi (1996). 9 Monthly approval ratings were not taken in March-April 1974 when Alain Poher, President of the Senate, assumed responsibilities as interim president until the May election. 10 De Gaulle’s actions in Algeria from 1959-61 were not included as rally effects. Algeria, unlike other French colonies at the time, was considered a political entity belonging to metropolitan France and had minimal representation in the National Assembly. 11 In summer 2003 67% of respondents said they supported or sympathized with the theatre performers’ strikes. See “Les Français face au mouvement social des intermittents du spectacle,” Sondages CSA, <http://www.csa-fr.com/fra/dataset/data2003/soc20030707.htm>. 12 Variance inflation tests were performed on the presidential model and showed some moderate colinearity, as might be expected, between the dummy variables for Mitterrand and Chirac and the first and third cohabitations, respectively. Excluding the dummy variables for president and period of cohabitation, alternatively, does not substantively affect the coefficients. 13 To test a possible curvilinear relationship between time and public approval that would otherwise suggest an increase in public confidence in relation to growing competence over time, the model was estimated by replacing time in office with time2 and time3. Lower F-scores for the model with these substitutions were the result, indicating the absence of a curvilinear relationship and less explanatory power than months in office. 14 A graduate of the prestigious École nationale d’administration, where many high-profile political leaders earn their education.
39
Table 1
Regression Analysis of Presidential Approval in Fifth Republic France, 1959-2003
B
coefficient Newey-West Standard Error
t-value
Unemployment -1.17 0.20 -5.94**** Months in Office (1-84) -0.17 0.02 -8.31**** Strikes -3.28 0.81 -4.07**** Domestic Strife 2.01 1.40 1.44* Rally Event 1.11 1.40 0.84 Bastille Day Interview -0.12 0.89 -0.14 de Gaulle (1st term) 3.03 1.33 2.28** Pompidou 0.44 1.32 0.33 Giscard -3.80 1.20 -3.15**** Mitterrand (1st term) -3.88 1.60 -2.42*** Chirac (1st term) -7.37 2.36 -3.12*** Cohabitation, Mitterrand 1 (1986-88)
18.77 1.65 11.38****
Cohabitation, Mitterrand 2 (1993-95)
-0.67 2.12 -0.32
Cohabitation, Chirac (1997-2002)
12.80 2.18 5.87****
Constant 66.08 1.21 54.41**** N=509 F=43.98****
Dependent variable is monthly presidential approval **** p < .001 *** p < .01 ** p < .05 * p< .10 (one-tailed)
40
Table 2 “Mean Effects” of Unemployment on Presidential Approval
President Unemployment Rate Effect on Public Opinion
High Low Mean High Effect Low Effect Mean Effect
de Gaulle 1.9% 1.2% 1.8% -2.2% -1.4% -2.1% Pompidou 2.8% 2.0% 2.6% -3.3% -2.3% -3.0% Giscard 7.5% 2.6% 5.2% -8.8% -3.0% -6.0%
Mitterrand 12.1% 7.2% 9.5% -14.2% -8.4% -11.1% Chirac 12.0% 8.5% 10.3% -14.0% -9.9% -12.1%
See the text for an explanation of the calculation of effects.
41
Table 3 Regression Analysis of Prime Ministerial Approval in Fifth Republic France, 1959-2003
B
coefficient Newey-West Standard Error
t-value B coefficient
Newey-West Standard Error
t-value
Unemployment 1.91 0.32 6.06**** -0.99 0.75 -1.32* Months in Office (1-74) -0.12 0.40 -0.28 -0.26 0.05 -4.84**** Strikes -4.80 1.57 -3.05*** -2.86 1.43 -2.00** Domestic Strife -0.89 2.58 -0.35 0.24 1.98 0.12 Rally Event -1.37 2.12 -0.65 -1.65 1.80 -0.92 Debré 1.10 2.36 0.47 ---------- ---------- ---------- Pompidou 6.24 2.43 2.56** ---------- ---------- ---------- Couve de Murville 8.29 2.12 3.91**** ---------- ---------- ---------- Chaban-Delmas 18.03 2.08 8.65**** ---------- ---------- ---------- Messmer 3.81 2.79 1.37* ---------- ---------- ---------- Chirac (1974-76) ---------- ---------- ---------- -8.17 2.52 -3.24**** Barre ---------- ---------- ---------- -7.76 4.17 -1.83** Mauroy ---------- ---------- ---------- 1.09 5.25 0.21 Fabius ---------- ---------- ---------- 2.09 5.86 0.36 Chirac (cohabitation, 1986-88)
---------- ---------- ---------- 2.79 6.00 0.47
Rocard ---------- ---------- ---------- 14.58 5.35 2.73*** Cresson ---------- ---------- ---------- -15.08 6.08 -2.48*** Bérégovoy ---------- ---------- ---------- 2.22 6.48 0.34 Balladur (cohabitation, 1993-95)
---------- ---------- ---------- 17.23 7.35 2.35***
Juppé ---------- ---------- ---------- -4.81 7.82 -0.62 Jospin (cohabitation, 1997-2002)
---------- ---------- ---------- 20.01 6.39 3.13****
Raffarin ---------- ---------- ---------- 6.78 5.22 1.30* Constant 31.99 2.69 11.89**** 57.37 3.20 17.92**** N=490 F=24.15****
N=385 F=46.50****
Dependent variable is monthly prime ministerial approval **** p < .001 *** p < .01 ** p < .05 * p< .10 (one-tailed)
42
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Appendix 1
Chronology of Significant International Crises/Foreign Policy Rally Events in Fifth Republic France Date Event 8/61 Berlin crisis 4/61 Algeria referendum on independence passes 10/63 Evacuation of French in Bizerte, Tunisia 2/64 Military coup d’état in Gabon 5/64 Tunisia crisis; Bourguiba expropriates foreign colonists 5/67 French military bases in the Sahara are officially closed/evacuated 7/67 de Gaulle trip to Canada; “vive le Québec libre” speech incites Québec nationalists 8/68 Invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact nations 8/68 French military intervention in Chad 10/70 French troops clash with forces in Chad 5/77 French killed Maritania 5/78 Crisis in Zaire; French troops sent 9/79 Central African Republic; seizure of power by Dacko, backed by French troops 10/83 Beirut crisis/French military casualties 11/83 Military raid in Mid-East by French troops 12/83 Bombings in Mid-East 1/84 French troops in Chad killed 9/84 Evacuation of troops/French citizens in Chad 8/90-10/90 Occupation of Kuwait by Iraq 1/91–2/91 Gulf War; French participation 9/92 Ratification of Maastricht treaty by referendum 7/95 Interception of Rainbow-Warrior by French marines 6/97 French troops deployed in Brazzaville, Congo 5/96 French troops sent to reinforce troops in the Central African Republic 11/96 French troops deployed in Bengui, Central African Republic 9-10/01 Aftermath of 9/11 attacks in New York, Washington; President Chirac particularly active on the international scene 10-12/02 French troop deployments and military actions in the Côte d’Ivoire 5/03 French army reconnaissance mission in northern Congo
46
Appendix 2 Chronology of Domestic Strife Events in Fifth Republic France
Date Event 1/75 Hostages taken at Orly Airport by terrorists 3/82 Terrorist attack on train in France 4/82 Terrorist attack on the rue Marbeuf in Paris 8/82 Terrorist attack on Iranian embassy in Paris 1/83 Two officers killed in New Caledonia 2/83 Terrorism in Paris 1/85 State of emergency declared in New Caledonia 2/86 Terrorist bombing in Paris 7/86 Terrorist bombing in Paris 9/86 Series of terrorist bombings in Paris 9/87 Civil unrest in New Caledonia 5/89 Assassination in New Caledonia 7/95 RER (Paris) train station bombing at St.-Michel 8/95 Bombing at Place Charles de Gaulle in Paris 12/96 RER (Paris) train station bombing at the Palais Royal 2/98 Assassination of Prefect Claude Érignac in Corsica 11/99 Double attack in Corsica 1/01 Bombing of Palais de Justice in Annecy; Corsican nationalists suspected 8/03 Several buildings bombed in Ajaccio, Corsica, including the high court building (Tribunal de Grande Instance)
47
Appendix 3
Chronology of Major Strikes and Demonstrations in Fifth Republic France Date Event 2/59 Occupation of establishments in Fives-Lille-Caille 6/59 Demonstration by the Comité national d’action laïque against education laws 12/59 End of strike by public employees 10-11/60 Strike and demonstrations upon the firing of 3,000 workers at Renault 4/61 General strike called by unions and parties of the left 10/61 Demonstrations by Algerians in Paris with significant police repression 12/61 Street demonstrations against the Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS) 12/61-2/62 Miners’ strike in Decazeville 1/62 Anti-OAS demonstration in Paris 2/62 Anti-OAS demonstration with 8 dead in the aftermath 3/63 Miners’ strike 11/63 Large demonstrations against the French nuclear strike force 1/64 Layoffs in the ports of Loire-Atlantique, strikes, occupation of factories 5/66 General strike 3/67 End of the strike of Rhodiaceta 5/67 General strike called by parties and unions of the left concerning social security 1/68 Worker demonstrations in Caen 5/68 Month-long student demonstrations, occupations of universities 3/69 24-hour general strike 9/69 Transportation strike against governmental austerity plan 2/71 Demonstrations by the Secours rouge in Paris, arrest of student Gilles Guyot 3/71 End of factory strikes in Nantes after 43 days 4/71 Strike at the Renault Le Mans factory 3/73 Students demonstrate against law abrogating military service before age 21 6/73 Strike at the clock factory Lip in Besancon; violent incidents in Paris over immigration policies 10-12/73 Strike by the Posts, Telegraph, and Telecommunications sector 2/3-74 Strikes in the banking sector 3/76 Student demonstrations over university reform plans 10/76 National strike against the Barre Government 5/77 National strike against government social policy 3/79 Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) strike with violent repercussions 5/80 Student demonstrations against higher education reform plans 3-4/84 Large demonstration at Versailles by private educators 11-12/86 Student demonstrations against government education reforms 12/88 Transportation strikes in Paris 9/91 Demonstrations by farmers in Paris against the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the
European Economic Community 1/94 Large demonstration by 200,000 protestors in defense of public schools 11/95 Student strikes against the 1996 government budget; strikes began in Rouen 11-12/95 Strikes against the Juppé government in transportation, electricity, and postal sectors 8/96 Expulsion of illegal immigrants provokes violent outbursts in l’Egile Saint-Bernard 11/96 Transportation sector strikes/blocking of major highways in France 12/97 Unemployed workers occupy Assedic buildings 1/99 Demonstrations against PACs legislation (according civil unions to non-married couples) 3/00 Mobilization of teachers against secondary and college-level education reform 5-7/03 Transportation, teachers, and theatre strikes; summer festivals at Aix and Avignon canceled