French State during the French Fifth Republic - Essay Example

The Erosion The Erosion of Traditionally Distinctive Characteristics of the French during the French Fifth Republic of Client of University The Erosion 2 The Erosion of Traditionally Distinctive Characteristics of the French State during the French Fifth Republic Introduction The nation of France has undergone a great many changes in the last few decades since the end of World War II. The constitution was re-written and ratified in order to create a more authoritative presence of a President, thus creating the circumstance of the Fifth Republic. Charles de Gaulle came forward to lead the nation through a series of changes that would provide a foundation for the economic growth and stimulation of the economy that would position the nation in the world as a leader. However, the growth of the economic foundation of the nation has meant that belonging to the EU promotes a sense of Europeanization as the European countries have come together in order to create a collaborative force for the economy of the region. This has led to a disintegration of the traditional family style business ownership that typified the states economic base as a cultural form of identification. The family is extremely important to the French as a certain sense of homogeny is a part of the sociological identity. An observable lack of trust is part of the cultural identity of the French people, therefore the emersion of the state into an organization that is intent on making an overall European state that is unified under one policy does not culturally set well. Fifth Republic and the Presidency The French Fifth Republic is the current constitution and regime of France and was created on October 24 of 1958. The collapse of the Fourth regime was precipitated by The Erosion 3 the Algiers crisis of 1958 where The Algerian War of Independence led to great turmoil within France which was resulted in a push towards decolonization. This marked the return of Charles de Gaulle as a political leader and through which the Fifth Republic would be built. The inability of the leaders of the Fourth Republic to make decisions about decolonization was the core reason that it failed and a new constitution which marked the beginning of the Fifth Republic was put into place. The Fifth Republic Constitution was defined by the leadership of a president who was elected into office for seven years. This form of presidential system replaced the former system that was parliamentary in nature. Charles de Gaulle was the first president elected under the constitution and in 1962 promoted and succeeded in creating a change that diverted the election of the president away from the electoral college system to a direct vote by the citizens. Despite heavy opposition, de Gaulle managed to pass this proposal. In the year 2000, the length of the presidential term was changed from seven years to five years. The situation with the presidency that was developed in the Fifth Republic is that it was instituted without giving over much in the way of power. According to Bell (2000, p. 11), the difference between power and authority is that power is simply the ability to accomplish goals. Authority, however, is the drawn from the “warrants that can be drawn to justify action and secure the legitimacy of change“. The power of the presidency in the Fifth Republic is very limited, but the focus of the government is still toward that role. Charles de Gaulle Charles de Gaulle was a visionary, charismatic and with ideas that would stir and The Erosion 4 then change a nation. According to Debray (1994, p. 13) , de Gaulle can be compared to Napoleon in that there has arisen a myth about the man in the way that he and Napoleon “modified the state of things because they modified souls”. The changes that were made were not the force that created the change, but the men behind those changes and what they meant to the people. Debray (1994, p. 14) admits that he is mixing strange ideologies when comparing Napoleon to de Gaulle, the former having run the country into the ground while the later liberating it from the circumstances that it was in at the time of the change. However, he holds to his comparison as both rallied the people to their cause for better or for worse. Charles de Gaulle, like Napoleon, was a man whose will was a voice that embodied the sound of thousands as he brought to France his vision. To understand the power of De Gaulle, one must fully understand the extent to which he ultimately can be called responsible for the salvation of France during the Second World War. De Gaulle had one by one taken back the French colonies, ultimately running a government in exile and pushing the Allies to treat the country with the respect that was due a foreign power (Debray, 1994). His work, his charisma, and the way in which he dealt with the whole of the French situation with the occupation of Germany created a mythology and aura around the man that would provide for his opinion and situation to be held in the highest regard. When he came back to once again handle a crisis, he had the mythology of a savior to back his actions. The main issue that had arisen during the Algerian War of Independence is that many of the French troupes were defending the rebels in their cause. This created a sense of a civil war within France with some of its troupes having become traitorous to the The Erosion 5 national cause. De Gaulle found this to be an opportunity in which to bring to the table his ideas for a new constitution, changing the government to a new system of control (Jackson 2003, p. 79). Jackson (2003, p. 80) also finds a comparison to Napoleon appropriate at this point. De Gaulle was elected president at the end of 1958 having created a new constitution under which to form his vision of the French leadership and like Napoleon had instituted in a very short time a great number of policy changes. As well during this time De Gaulle intended to institute new revitalized foreign and financial policies in order to situate France in a better global position (Jackson 2003, p. 80). It was De Gaulle’s intent to bring France back to the world as a foreign power, global influential and powerful with an equal voice with the other great powers of the world. His intent was made known through his actions that created a break with the Allied Alliance when NATO began supporting the rearmament of German which, in the eyes of the French, placed them squarely in a path that could pose a threat to the nation once again (Bozo 2000, p. 2). As well, De Gaulle saw the influence of the American government on the actions of the French as intrusive and against the interests of the French people. Thus, the break with the globally influential allies was formulated and situated to influence the future of France. The issue that De Gaulle was facing was that the United States was leading the world in the way in which it was being designed and this did not particularly set well with his vision for the future. Therefore, he set about creating an atmosphere of Europeanization that would lead toward the exclusion of the attempts of the United States to rule over the decisions of the European nations. Using the issues of the day, that of The Erosion 6 nuclear disarmament, he blocked US policies through the institution of his own policy, forming an independence from the global alliance that was controlled so blatantly by the policies of the United States. By 1964, according to Bozo (2001, p. 103), he was able to put his own organized nuclear deterrent into place, nullifying the infiltrations of the American government into European policy. Kennedy’s ‘Grand Design’ primarily was directed at putting together a “two pillared Atlantic partnership developing coordinated policies in all economic, political, and diplomatic areas”, as stated in his Presidential speech on 4 July 1962 (Bange 1999, p. 42) . The British role in this plan was somewhat of a greater partner to the United States as the policies of the British government ran in line with the expectations of the Americans. Thus, the role of France was somewhat diminished and this did not set well with De Gaulle. He intended to make it clear that his participation was at the whim of discretion based solely on the needs of the French in making policies that suited their needs. The French held s dominate position in the European communities, especially where the Germans and their continued subjugation after the war was concerned (Bange 1999, p. 43). There seems to be two basic types of leadership where global interests are concerned. One type is a follower who looks to the leaders of the world for guidance in how to serge forth into the world in order to position themselves both economically and politically. The second insists on making a stand for his people, not taking the ideas of nations that may seem larger or greater in stature. De Gaulle positioned France in the second category, a power in its own right that was well within its prerogatives to create The Erosion 7 policy independent of the world and specifically the United States. Trust and the Family The French economy was slow to develop into its own place within the changes that the world was seeing in the way companies were run. The family business lasted for a long time as the standard for business operation where the rest of the world was adapting to the corporate model of business operation (Fukuyama 1996, p. 117). Fukuyama states that much of the way in which the French economy developed was based on the strong association that the French have to familism. There is some speculation that this tendency toward the family business created a competition that was unwieldy, driving down the prices in such a way that they were unable to compete with one another. However, the more accurate scenario is that perhaps the inability to let go of traditions with the family structured business created a situation where a lack of growth created stagnation that lead to the decline and loss of many of these businesses in a faster paced global market where some might not have moved forward quickly enough from a technological point of view. From the point of view of a sociological study of the way in which the French internal economy was somewhat stunted by the family style business, a sense of how the people of this country were in regard to collaboration sheds some light on the reasons the nation found it hard to move into a more corporate approach. The French are not very trusting of those outside of their family. French customs go so far as to look down on adoption because of the intrusion into the family trust, this falling in line with the way in which the Chinese and the Italian’s view the same issue. However, the French still did not move forward as quickly as these two countries in developing businesses that took The Erosion 8 advantage of the corporate model. Fukuyuma (1996, p. 118) attributes this to the way in which the family and the state relate to one another with a general lack of trust. The family is the point of cohesion with all other outsiders subject to immediate distrust. This puts a damper on the ability of a collaborative effort to develop that can lead to either joining of business or of redistribution of power within these businesses outside of the family. This stunts economic growth. This might be used to explain the approach that was taken by De Gaulle toward the Allied Alliance and Kennedy’s ’grand design’. If the general cultural attitude is one of mistrust within the nation of families to one another and to the central government, and then beyond into other nations and sovereignties, it is no wonder that in foreign policy a sense of autonomy and control was deemed necessary so that they were not going along with others for whom they did not hold trust. Without the trust within the country, it is hard to imagine that this sort of trust would be held outside of the country. Globalization and the EU According to Warleigh-lack (2008, p. 12), the European Union was designed for function rather than ideology. He says that “the EU has been primarily viewed by its member states as a tool to be used in solving otherwise intractable problems rather than as the product of idealism”. The process of building the EU has been through the need to build stronger economic foundations from which to create profit for the European members. This has promoted a sense of Europeanization, however, as a side effect to the collaborative efforts that have moved the nations involved into closer unity. The fear of this sense that the European nations are becoming one large entity is that a loss of culture The Erosion 9 will inevitably follow this collaborative and integrative process of creating the EU. France was a founding member of the EU having been a part of the first collaborative effort in 1951 when the European Coal and Steel Community was formed with France, Germany, Italy and Benelux. The founding of the EC (European Commission) with the intent of integrating the European countries under one body of policy making caused some difficulties for the French government under de Gaulle. During the period of time of the empty chair crisis, De Gaulle withdrew his representatives from Brussels between July and December of 1965, when there was a general contention that the Commission was too powerful and without control from other bodies in creating policy (Richardson 2006, p. 40). The institution of the Luxemburg Compromise allowed for the Council of Ministers to have a voice in the decisions that the Commission were making. The continuation of a feeling that the French autonomy was of primary concern can be seen in the way this policy making situation was viewed. While France is a founding member of the early EU and remains a part of the community, the nation has struggled to become independent of outside influences, primarily preventing US policy to have a primary hold over how the European nations would proceed in economic harmony on the continent. While integration continued, the establishment of the changes made during the Luxemburg Compromise slowed the process of integration down as more voices were involved in creating policy (Richardson 2006, p. 40). Though the growth of the integration process was slowed down in the 1970’s by the Luxemburg compromise, the EU began to see steady growth in the 1990’s The Erosion 10 (Richardson 2006, p. 42). By this time period, the UK had achieved full employment and sustained growth, but the three core communities France, Germany, and Italy experienced high unemployment rates that are reaching as high as 30% still to this day (Welfins 2008, p. 299). Previous to 1950, a labor shortage had been the typical state of affairs in France. However, this shortage had seen decreases beginning in the aftermath of World War I and growing steadily through World War II because of influxes of immigrants who picked up the jobs that were not being worked by the French (Tilly1995, p. 100). Therefore, the creation of citizenship status was made relevant to the ability to fulfill jobs that were empty due to the shortage of labor. During the 1970’s economic growth was slowing, therefore the problems that arose with immigration were heightened with a growing sense of xenophobia and prejudice becoming pervasive. In the 1980’s, through the end of Francois Mitterrand’s term of office in 1995, a marked increase in unemployment made the influx of immigrants to fill jobs unnecessary for the economic state of the country. From a few thousand unemployed in 1974 to over 3 million in 1995, the French people no longer had the luxury of a shortage of labor to fulfill their economic welfare (Kritzman and Reilly 2006, p. 262). This created a cultural peril for those who had already migrated to the country as they were no longer an economic necessity. This created a circumstance in which not finding integration with the culture was almost a certainty. Decentralization According to Schwartz (1954, p. 82), the French government from the French The Erosion 11 revolution to the date of his publication which was in 1954 represented a positive example of a strong centralized government. According to Breton (2007, p. 457) however, in the 1980’s decentralization began to become part of the changes in policy making in the government. According to Baker and LeTendre (2005, p.145), the move to become decentralized is greatly resisted within the nation of France. This is seen as a course that leads to a decidedly inequality in the way in which services will be allocated to the citizens of the country. Although a country such as the United States sees decentralization as a form of promoting democracy as regions are given more control over their destinies, a country such as France sees this as distancing their regions and creating inequality in the way in which one region will serve as compared to another. According to Baker and LeTendre (2005, p. 145) “privatization, performance accountability, and greater responsiveness through decentralized control from a greater message”, the receptiveness to this has been less than enthusiastic. While Baker and Legendre (2005, p. 146) claim that the resistance to decentralization is due to traditions and nostalgia for the old ways of doing things, the case can be made for the success of the centralized system and that to go to a decentralized system has the potential for creating disharmony throughout the various provinces. An example is made of the Muslim girl who wishes to cover her hair with a scarf, but because it is illegal to wear clothing that signifies religious associations, she cannot wear her scarf. In a centralized governing system she would have to fight this battle at a national level rather than a local level. The Erosion 12 However, the centralized theory of governing can be more effective when dealing with public health care. In the case of health care, there is a centralized system of policy decision making that is passed down to decentralized bodies who then administer the policies. The combination is effective in creating a cooperative effect of both the centralized and the decentralized parties in coordinating the health care system. However, when the system breaks down there are complaints that the decentralized functions are not as connected to the central governing parties as they should be in order to create a stable working system (Saltman, Bankauskaite, and Vrangbaek 2007, p. 148). These types of issues cause a desire for the centralized government in complete control that was so admired for so many years. The trends, however, through the EU encouragement is to move towards a decentralized methodology of governance. French Presidential Philosophy According to Flood (1997, p. 75), the philosophy of Charles de Gault was based on the promotion of the survival of his nation and the spread of the French culture. De Gault saw that radical change was needed within his country in order to create a state that could become viable and strong within the global economy. Therefore, instead of working on the existing system, he designed a new system of government for his country and used the traditional symbols and sentimentality of his people towards nationalism to sway them toward the new way of thinking about their government. Through the familiar, he was able to create an affinity to the new that he was proposing. However, the new form of government moved away from the origins of the governance as experienced during the Fourth Republic. However, Valery Gisgard The Erosion 13 d’Estaing who was president in France from 1974 until 1981 was a supporter of the concept of the United States of Europe which called for the complete integration of the European nations so that they held a unifying front. According to Flood (1997, p. 75), his philosophy was not focused on the nation of France, but on the needs of the individual, creating a precursory administration to that of Francois Mitterrand. Francois Mitterrand was the first socialist president of the nation of France. His presidency lasted from 1981 until 1995, creating the longest held presidency to date of the Fifth Republic. He was in opposition to de Gaulle for most of his life. His policies were involved extensively in the expansion of the EU, creating a stronger economic base in which the European countries could operate (Tiersky 2002). However, the more the EU expands, the more blurred the individual nations will become, providing a deterioration of individual national strength of governance as the policies become more and more universal. Conclusion The change of the constitution in 1958 created a snowball effect of events that has changed the traditional nature of the French government. Where the centralized government and the strong familial culture had been the core of the French nation, the new foreign policies and the presidential based government opened the door to both decentralization and the influences of a larger economic community that changed the nature of the way in which business is conducted. While decentralization is encouraged by the EU, the French traditions and success do not suggest that a move toward this aspect is wise. However, the nation has undergone changes that do move toward The Erosion 14 decentralization. As well, the familial nature of business has finally fallen to the side in favor of the corporate model of business. While the intentions of the advances in the way in which foreign and domestic policies have intended to improve the quality of life for the people of France, there is a definitive deterioration of cultural traditions that has occurred since the beginning of the Fifth Republic of France. The Erosion 15 References Baker, David P., and Gerald K. LeTendre. 2005. National differences, global similarities: world culture and the future of schooling. Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Press. Bange, Oliver. 1999. The EEC crisis of 1963: Kennedy, Macmillan, De Gaulle and Adenauer in conflict. Contemporary history in context. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Bell, David S. 2000. Presidential power in fifth republic France. Oxford: Berg. Bozo, Fredric. 2001. Two strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States, and the Atlantic Alliance. Lanham [u.a.]: Rowman & Littlefield. 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