WI : a Gaullist Fourth Republic

As everybody likely knows, the Fourth Republic was an attempt at ressurecting the Third Republic slain by Pétain. It was therefore wrecked by the same problems, but in worse, and plagued by its two largest parties - the Gaullists and the Communists - refusing to play ball. The trademark instability of the Third Republic, where governments changed every six months in bad times, was exacerbated by this into only leaving a mean lifespan of six weeks. This led to the Fifth Republic iith a strong executive power like De Gaulle wished. Now this wish was already resent when the constitution of the Fourth Republic was drafted. What would've changed if strong government based not on a fickle parliamentary coalition but a powerful Peesidnt?
 
I have a few visibility issues on my platform, so I'll correct the last sentence of the OP : "What would've changed if France had had a strong government based not on a fickle parliamentary coalition but a strong President with large executive powers ?" and hint at Indochina, where a sudden government change broke the prospects of a peaceful settlement.
 
Personally, I think that if France adopted the constructive vote of no confidence as part of the structure of the Fourth Republic (like (then-West) Germany, which had very similar issues with its Weimar Republic), it could have helped the stability of the parliamentary system, with or without a Gaullist-inspired head of state. The differences between France and Germany were that while Weimar Germany's President was too strong (even by the standards of the modern Fifth Republic), by comparison the Third Republic's President was comparatively weak. That bit was what concerned Gaullists.

In addition to adopting a constructive vote of no confidence, as you are probably well aware we also need a POD in the GPRF. Now, if Wiki is right, it has the sentence:
Wikipedia said:
de Gaulle, favouring a stronger executive, resigns in disagreement with Communist ministers on 20 January 1946. A first draft constitution, supported by the left but denounced by de Gaulle and by centre and right-wing parties, is rejected by a referendum on 5 May 1946 resulting in the dissolution of parliament and the resignation of de Gaulle's successor Félix Gouin of the SFIO.
That, to me, would be a potential POD. It would be interesting to see what that first draft contained and why it was rejected by the voters. Furthermore, the Communists also have to be brought in line; maybe De Gaulle becomes the dominant force in the GPRF from the get-go?

As for a presidential France - honestly, my beef with presidential government is that it too can be unstable in different ways, and it is definitely prone to authoritarian tendencies. Granted, the Resistance myth would gain stronger ground (as a result, for example, something like Alain Resnais' Nuit et brouillard or Hiroshima, mon amour, or even La sang des bêtes, would have a difficult time being produced). I don't know if much would have changed, whether it be pure presidential or semi-presidential. Most countries that have adopted presidential government, particularly in Latin America, have added on various reforms and safeguards (including the use of some form of proportional representation) into the system, because despite being the predominant mode of government in the region Latin Americans in general are all too well aware of the authoritarian and dictatorial tendencies of the system. Granted, France is not Latin America, but if you have those tendencies in the Third and Fourth Republics towards a frequent change of government, then whose to say that would also not exist here, even with de Gaulle?
 
The problem is that in 1945-6 no political party favored a presidential constitution of the sort de Gaulle wanted--it seemed too dangerously Bonapartist. The Communists and Socialists wanted a one-chamber sovereign assembly (rejected https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_constitutional_referendum,_May_1946 in the referendum of May 1946.) The Radicals of course wanted to go back to the Third Republic. Even the MRP, which wanted a President with power to dissolve the Assembly "opposed a presidential regime of the type advocated by General de Gaulle..." https://books.google.com/books?id=ri8vCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA38

Realistically, you could not have a Gaullist Fourth Republic; but conceivably you could have a Gaullist Fifth Republic much earlier than in OTL (maybe in 1947 when the newly formed RPF was at the height of its popularity--the problem is getting the National Assembly to agree to have new elections that early: it's unlikely, but possible if the Center and Right parties reluctantly concluded that only de Gaulle could save France from chaos and Communism).
 
I once read an article on slate.fr that stated that France was able to exploit the post-war era precisely because the IVth Republic gave it a lot of flexibility, with different coalition being able to form to solve specific problems.

I can't really comment on the details but I'll point out that the Vth Republic, especially since the Quinquennat is an extremely monarchist constitution. Normally the President is balanced by the Assemblée but now they're elected at the same time. Even with a president as deeply unpopular as Holland, laws still get passed, which is a feat in itself.
The problem of such a government is that it's a big mantle, which was made to measure for de Gaulle and few people since have had the shoulders for it
 
As everybody likely knows, the Fourth Republic was an attempt at ressurecting the Third Republic slain by Pétain. It was therefore wrecked by the same problems, but in worse, and plagued by its two largest parties - the Gaullists and the Communists - refusing to play ball. The trademark instability of the Third Republic, where governments changed every six months in bad times, was exacerbated by this into only leaving a mean lifespan of six weeks. This led to the Fifth Republic iith a strong executive power like De Gaulle wished. Now this wish was already resent when the constitution of the Fourth Republic was drafted. What would've changed if strong government based not on a fickle parliamentary coalition but a powerful Peesidnt?

It was not however, it was an attempt to bring back a parliamentary republic, as was the French Republican tradition, while dealing with the issues that plagued the Third Republic. As a result, the executive was strengthened (even if not too much, but for instance the PM could ask the President to dissolve the Assembly) and the Senate became a minor chamber, as opposed to an equal to the National Assembly.

The second statement is incorrect too, although it is true that after 1947 the Communists were not in government and were generally instinctively opposed to anything, they did support the PMF government in 1954 and the Mollet one in 1956 through their abstention. The Gaullists were only a political force between 1951 and 1956 (2nd Legislature) and after 1952, when the RPF broke into loyalists and the ARS, Gaullists became a part of the centre-left (PMF) or centre-right cabinets (Pinay, Laniel, Mayer, Faure II), indeed after the 1956 election, the few remaining Gaullist deputies (social republicans as they were known) were a part of the two main blocs, the Centre-Right and the centre-left Republican Front. One of the major issues of the Fourth Republic, and in general French politics, was the lack of discipline and internal cohesion of the parties, as they were prone to having deputies break up and refuse to follow the party whip. This was particularly the case for the centre-right modérés and the centrist radicaux, who even prided themselves in the deputies' individuality. This is interesting because proportional representation systems tend to increase the cohesion of parties, but it doesn't seem it had a huge effect on French politics.

You are not going to get a strong President in 1946 and indeed you weren't either in 1958, not until the 1962 referendum did the current presidential logic kick in. What you can have, however, is to avoid the 1958 coup and get the National Assembly to pass the constitutional amendments that were already under way that would have strengthened the power of the PM, as proposed by Félix Gaillard. The main issue remains, however, that most French Presidents of the Council were not dismissed by the National Assembly in confidence votes (indeed, having more than 2 in a single legislature would have been grounds for a PM to ask for the chamber's dissolution and call new elections), but rather they resigned when they felt they could no longer operate. With a system in which is easier to form a government (as was the case after the 1954 constitutional changes) but hard to manage to dismiss them, the authority of the PM would have been strenghtened.

However, if you look at Italy, they also had government instability and managed fine for 50 years. The main issue was that as the Fourth Republic as a political and electoral system was more receptive to popular demands than the more authoritarian early Gaullist period, French politics were just as divided as French society on Algeria, although it seems that by the time of the Pflimlin government, politicians had finally started to move towards a pro-decolonisation approach, but slowly, as changes under the 4th Republic were always slow, due to having to form various, issue-based coalitions.
 
It is true that the Fourth Republic constitution was not simply a re-creation of the Third Republic's. Nevertheless, compared to the *first* proposal for a new constitution--the Communist-Socialist one for a sovereign unicameral National Assembly, voted down in the May 1946 referendum--one can see how the version ultimately adopted was seen as a retreat to the Third Republic. See Albert Guerard's comments:

"The constitution elaborated by the Assembly under the inspiration of two men of keen intelligence, Andre Philip and Pierre Cot [Cot was a Soviet agent--DT], was a bold departure from the Orleanist compromise of 1875. It reverted to the tradition of the old Radicals, so different from the trimmers and time-servers who had later adopted the name. The Senate was abolished outright. The President became an even more shadowy figure than under the Third Republic. The single and omnipotent Assembly elected and could remove the prime minister. It was a Jacobin constitution and paved the way for the autocracy of a majority party. It was passed by a coalition of the Communists and Socialists over the opposition of the M.R.P/S. General de Gaulle, now a private citizen, pronounced against it. When on May 5, 1946, it was submitted to a referendum, it was rejected by 10,583,724 votes to 9,453,675.

"A new Constitutional Assembly was elected on June 2, 1946. There was no sensational change; but since the M.R.P. was now the largest party, Bidault became president-premier with Gouin, Socialist, and Thorez, Communist, as vice-premiers. The second constitution diverged widely from the first but not, as De Gaulle had expected, in the direction of the American system, with a strong and independent executive. It was purely and simply a rehash of the Constitution of 1875, with a figurehead president, a senate renamed Council of the Republic, elected in a very complicated fashion, and a popular chamber or national assembly. Both constitutions were prefaced with elaborate declarations of rights. Both made provisions for a French Union or Commonwealth to supersede the colonial empire.

"Again De Gaulle expressed his disapproval. On October 13, 1946, 9,120,576 Frenchmen endorsed the new regime, and 7,980,333 rejected it. But there were 25,379,917 registered voters: the nine million "yeas" represented only 36 per cent of the electorate. The constitution was evidently a compromise, unloved even by its sponsors. The M.R.P. in particular hastened to say that it was voted to end a provisional situation fraught with discomfort and dangers, but that it was in need of prompt and drastic amendment. So, with perverted logic, France progressed from the provisional to the precarious. It might have been wiser to do without a permanent constitution for a few years longer, or even, like the France of the Ancient Regime and like England to the present
day, to dispense with a written constitution altogether.

"As a matter of fact, the new instrument did not correct the most obvious evil of the Third Republic, ministerial instability. The dissolution of the Assembly an essential feature in the British system was indeed provided for, as it already was under the Constitution of 1875, but with such restrictions that it was not likely to prove a workable instrument. When on December 2, 1955, Prime Minister Edgar Faure dissolved the National Assembly and called for general elections, it was felt that he was not playing the game; and his sharp defeat at he polls on January 2, 1956, was a rebuke for what the politicians considered as almost a coup d'etat. So, cabinets have been even shorter-lived than before 1939. Queuille and Guy Mollet are considered as veritable Methuselahs among premiers, because they managed to wobble and totter uneasily for a whole year..."

https://archive.org/stream/franceamodernhis006433mbp#page/n475/mode/2up
 
Except, you know, the Centre-Right majority still came on top as the first coalition in 1956, and without the rise of the Poujadists, it's likely that the apparentements would have kicked in and provided the centre-right majority (MRP, moderes, right-wing rep. sociaux and non-Mendesist radicaux) with a majority. The idea of non-constitutional France seems ASB to me.
 
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