Intrigues and short stories of the presidential elections of the Fifth Republic

General view of the Elysee Palace on March 19, 2018 in Paris, France.

© Stephane Cardinale - Corbis via Getty Images

Text by: Fabien Leboucq

14 mins

The Fifth Republic is experiencing its twelfth presidential election in 2022.

In nearly 60 years of political life, the races at the Élysée have been punctuated by surprise defeats and narrow victories, unexpected twists and turns, like real turnarounds.

Small fresco of this series of which a new page is written this year.

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1958 – The birth of the Fifth Republic – De Gaulle (78.51% in the first round)

In 1958, Algeria was French but did not intend to remain so: the separatists had been fighting for four years.

In Paris, the Fourth Republic, born in the ashes of the Second World War, is tottering.

It was General de Gaulle, leader of the Resistance and exiled in England during the conflict, who was called upon to restore stability.

He who had kept away from the Fourth Republic, criticizing its parliamentarism, made a triumphant return.

During the summer, Michel Debré, loyal to the General, drafted a Constitution with a team of lawyers, hastily validated by parliamentarians and the government.

On September 4, 1958, it was approved by nearly 80% by referendum: the Fifth Republic was born.

Via indirect suffrage where more than 80,000 elected officials vote, General de Gaulle obtains substantially the same score.

He becomes the first president of a very young Republic.

1965 – Everyone to the polls!

–DeGaulle (55.20%)

“ 

”, asks the young Marianne, muse of the French Republic, on the campaign posters of Charles de Gaulle.

On the drawing, we guess, stretched towards the child, the arm of the General already in his seventies.

Significant change compared to the last presidential election: direct universal suffrage.

For the first time in more than a century, all citizens are invited to the polls to choose their president – ​​and for the first time in French history, women are also invited to vote.

It is perhaps this mode of suffrage, in addition to his refusal to campaign, which contributes, to everyone's surprise, to put General de Gaulle on the ballot.

In the second round, he faces François Mitterrand.

Twenty years younger than the president, this early opponent appeared on television: it was in 40% of homes in 1965, and made a sensational entry into 

.

Initially, Charles de Gaulle was reluctant to use it.

Aware of the drop in voting intentions in his favor during the end of the campaign, he finally decided to comply with the exercise.

He gives him the little-known image of a good-natured and affable leader.

1969 – A great absentee and rivals (Pompidou, 58.21%)

Undermined by the student revolts of May 1968 and the strikes that followed, General de Gaulle no longer recognized France.

He left office a year later, after the failure of a referendum on administrative reform.

The President of the Senate, Alain Poher, replaces him on an interim basis, the time to organize a ballot.

He intends to keep the seat and is running in the presidential election as a candidate for the liberal wing of the right.

This is torn between him and Georges Pompidou, former Prime Minister of Charles de Gaulle.

For the left, Poher or Pompidou, it's "

".

This formula, then brought up to date by the communist candidate Jacques Duclos, serves to qualify the alternative offered to the French in the second round.

Indeed, the left is divided between four candidates, and none qualifies, even if the communist party obtains more than 20%.

Gaston Defferre, mayor of Marseille and socialist candidate, barely reached more than 5%, it is five times more votes than the young unknown of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), Alain Krivine.

This former leader of May-68 is doing his military service when he learns that he is a candidate: his comrades have volunteered without consulting him.

Poster of the French Communist Party (PCF), 1968. © Rights reserved

1974 – A funeral and a narrow victory (Giscard d'Estaing, 50.81%)

Georges Pompidou did not complete five years at the Élysée when illness prevailed.

Twelve candidates then embark on the race for the presidency.

Two new trends are appearing on the starting grid: the far right, with Jean-Marie Le Pen (who obtains 0.75%), and ecology, with René Dumont (1.32%).

Jacques Chaban-Delmas, historic Gaullist and figure of the Fourth Republic was swept away in the first round by a young candidate who obtained double his score, the Minister of the Economy, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

If the right is divided, the left, meanwhile, is in battle order: socialists and communists unite once again behind François Mitterrand.

Television definitely took center stage in 1974: when the second round came,

between François Mitterrand and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

From this confrontation we retain the famous “ 

“This apostrophe, and the very great telegenics of Giscard d'Estaing earned him his election by a short head – the gap of 400,000 votes in the second round is to date the tightest in the history of the V Republic.

Another record: at only 48 years old, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing becomes the youngest president of the Fifth Republic.

1981 – The

To avoid too many candidates, the Constitutional Council has asked since 1976 that each candidate obtain

, but there are still 10 to take part in the ballot.

The Communist Party painfully exceeds 15% in the first round.

He is overtaken by Jacques Chirac, who is running for the first of a series of four consecutive presidential elections.

For François Mitterrand, the third will be the good one.

For the first time, the socialist goes on campaign without the communists.

We will remember from his campaign his poster, "The Quiet Force", much more striking and modern than those of the campaigns of 1965 and 1974. François Mitterrand took care of his image, and even took the upper hand during the second round debate, the second against Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

" 

," retorted the socialist. 

.

The Fifth Republic passes to the left, and experiences its first alternation.

1988 – “You are absolutely right, Prime Minister” (Mitterrand, 54.02%)

Two years before the election, the National Assembly goes to the right.

Jacques Chirac becomes prime minister under a left-wing president: this is the first cohabitation.

Over time, the two men learn to divide the tasks.

To the head of government the subjects of national policy, and to François Mitterrand the responsibility for foreign affairs and defense questions.

The president will not hesitate to remind the prime minister of his status in an exchange that has remained legendary.

After an easy re

-election against Jacques Chirac, the socialist president dissolves the Assembly, to obtain a majority on the left, and the prime minister who goes with it.

The presidential election of 1988 confirms the decline of the Communist Party, which is now only the fifth French political force, with just over 6% of the votes.

He is preceded by the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, which achieves a real breakthrough by approaching 15%, just behind the centrists of the UDF (Union for French Democracy) represented by Raymond Barre.

1995 – Discord and apple of victory (Jacques Chirac, 52.64%)

As was the case during the previous term, the seven-year term ends on two years of cohabitation after a victory for the right in the legislative elections.

This time it is Édouard Balladur who occupies Matignon – Jacques Chirac preferring to prepare his presidential campaign and keep his role as opponent.

Jacques Chirac and Édouard Balladur engage in open warfare in the first round.

Their party, the RPR (Rally for the Republic), is torn apart.

Balladur is the favourite, but

, with a two-point lead in the first round.

For some, he benefits from the image of sympathy that he managed to cultivate, between the choice of his campaign logo – an apple tree – and the humor of his puppet in 

.

The creators of the satirical Canal+ program also invented an unofficial slogan for the right-wing candidate: “ 

»

In the second round, Jacques Chirac faces Lionel Jospin.

The PS candidate serves as a stand-in for the expected champion of the Socialists, Jacques Delors, who has given up on running three months before the election.

Lionel Jospin, however, has legitimacy: he was elected in the first primary of the Socialist Party.

2002 – The surprise of the far right (Jacques Chirac, 82.21%)

Two years after his election, in reaction to a profound social movement which shook the country, Jacques Chirac dissolved the Assembly: he wanted to close the ranks of the majority around Prime Minister Alain Juppé.

The unexpected victory of the left in the legislative elections of 1997 opens the doors of Matignon to Lionel Jospin.

Thus begins the third – and longest – cohabitation of the Fifth Republic.

The post of Prime Minister will not serve the socialist candidate in the 2002 elections. Especially since in the first round, no less than 16 candidates are in competition.

The dilution of the voices of the left, and the very austere campaign of Lionel Jospin – he was the last to declare himself a candidate, and did so by fax to AFP – cost him his place in the second round.

The far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, a veteran of the Algerian war, is ahead of him by 200,000 votes.

Lionel Jospin leaves the public scene with these words: “ 

»

Amazement, therefore, on April 21, 2002

: few polling institutes had mentioned the possibility of a National Front (FN) with nearly 17%.

For the first time, the far right reached the second round.

Jacques Chirac refuses the traditional debate between two rounds with Jean-Marie Le Pen, but is easily re-elected thanks to a powerful anti-FN vote.

A demonstration against Jean-Marie Le Pen in Paris, May 1, 2002. © Laurent Van Der Stockt/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

2007 – For the first time, a woman in the second round (Nicolas Sarkozy, 53.1%)

Make way for "young people" in 2007. As in 1974, the two candidates who made it to the second round, Nicolas Sarkozy for the UMP (Union for the Presidential Majority) and Ségolène Royal for the PS (Socialist Party), were never neither president nor prime minister.

The trauma of April 21 sparked a mobilization, and the FN did not exceed 10% in the first round.

He is preceded by the centrist François Bayrou, who obtains 18.6%, three times better than in the previous presidential election.

Ségolène Royal is therefore the first woman to reach the second round of a presidential election in France.

But his campaign is marred by small failures, between the " 

" (sic) of the Chinese, and his spokesman Arnaud Montebourg who lets go on the set of the 

(Canal +) that his only fault is " 

" (namely … Francois Hollande).

The candidate suffers from a lack of legitimacy within the party, and the part of the PS Eric Besson even goes so far as to drop her to rally Nicolas Sarkozy who is campaigning with a vengeance.

The large victory of the right-wing candidate, however, has a bitter taste: during the campaign his wife, Cécilia Sarkozy, moves away from him, and she leaves him shortly after he enters the Élysée.

2012 – Return to the left (François Hollande, 51.64%)

This French presidential election sees the return of the left to power.

François Hollande declared his intentions very early on, a year before the election.

It is a favorable alignment of the planets which leaves him the field free: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, very popular with the media and part of the opinion is arrested in New York in 2011. The tenor of the Socialist Party and director of the International Monetary Fund is suspected of raping a cleaning lady at the Sofitel hotel, and he is forced to give up appearing.

François Hollande takes advantage of this.

He takes care of his image, loses 15 kilos during the summer, and takes advantage of his years at the head of the Socialist Party to ensure success in the Socialist primary.

Against the "bling bling" candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, who exploded the ceiling on campaign spending by several million euros, François Hollande claimed the image of a " 

" president.

He declares, the time of a speech, on January 22, 2012 at Le Bourget, war on the world of finance.

He thus stands out from Nicolas Sarkozy and his open friendships with the bosses of the CAC 40.

François Hollande's campaign poster.

© All rights reserved

2017 – Election of a newcomer to politics (Emmanuel Macron, 66.1%)

After the terrorist attacks that hit France in 2015 and 2016, in a context of high risk of attacks, the eleventh presidential election of the Fifth Republic is taking place under a state of emergency.

Outgoing President François Hollande, who is ending a half-hearted five-year term with record unpopularity, has given up on running for a second term, a first under the Fifth Republic.

The left-wing deputy Benoît Hamon won the "citizen primary" against former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, and became the candidate of the Socialist Party.

Less than a month before the first round, Manuel Valls then announced his rallying to Emmanuel Macron (LREM), the former Minister of the Economy and protected by François Hollande, causing the implosion of the PS.

The young 39-year-old enarque, who had never been a candidate for an election until then,

had resigned from the Valls government in August 2016 to found the La République en Marche movement!

(LREM) in order to stand in the presidential election.

On the side of the Les Républicains (RP) party, François Fillon created a surprise by winning the “open primary of the right and the center” ahead of the favorites Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Juppé.

But his campaign is strongly compromised by the revelations in the press of suspicions of fictitious jobs concerning his wife Pénélope Fillon.

Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the National Front (FN), also finds herself involved in several legal cases relating to the financing of her campaign, the employment of European parliamentary assistants or the undervaluation of her heritage.

Marine Le Pen qualifies for the second round of the elections and finds herself facing Emmanuel Macron during the traditional

between the two rounds, during which the two candidates clash in a fierce duel sometimes turning into a fight.

On May 7, Emmanuel Macron won the election with 66.1% of the votes cast against 33.9% for Marine Le Pen.

This second round is marked by a record abstention of 25.4%, that is to say one in four voters who did not come to vote, a first since 1969.

Emmanuel Macron addresses his supporters after winning the French presidential election at the Louvre in Paris, May 7, 2017. © Jeff J Mitchell / Getty

This article was originally published on 04/18/2017 and updated on 03/14/2022.

Our selection on the subject:

•   

→ Debate of the day: the 1958 constitution, keep it or change it?

→ Debate of the day: should sponsorship be reformed?

→ Will social networks make the presidential election?

•   

→

, Gérard Courtois (journalist at 

), Éditions Perrin

→

, double collector's issue of L'Express dated December 21, 2016.

•   

→ Infographic: French presidential election, instructions

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