Extract
[...] The dyarchy within the Executive thus finds its full manifestation5. The three periods of cohabitation, 1986-1988, 1993-1995, 1997-2002, have been different in certain respects due to the varying lengths and personalities involved. However, it is clear that they have involved a return to the letter of the Constitution. The President, without the support of a parliamentary majority, has only been able to use the prerogatives that are granted to the President. The Head of State cannot exert pressure on the Prime Minister to make him resign, who is then no longer 'his' Prime Minister, but that of the parliamentary assembly, before which he is politically responsible. [...]
[...] The executive power is then indeed entrusted entirely to a Head of State. This is the situation of the American President. He is assisted by a vice-president, he has advisors, but it is he who decides. Suppressing the office of the Prime Minister cannot be conceived without a certain number of complementary adjustments being made. These, however, are not only of constitutional order. In fact, for example, the question of the electoral calendar should be settled. There is no reason to distinguish the dates of legislative and presidential elections when there is independence in their action. [...]
[...] A hierarchization during the appointment then emerges to the point of being a "presidential government", the President of the Republic being "above" the Prime Minister. But beyond that, a sharing of powers in favor of the President of the Republic is also worth noting. A sharing of powers in favor of the President of the Republic La Ve Republic, parliamentary regime in its structures, entrusts roles to the Government, but it shares them with the President of the Republic. Fortified by the popular investiture he has, the latter intervenes significantly. [...]
[...] As guardian of the Constitution, he can seize the Constitutional Council, appoint some of its members; the President can also express his opposition to a text by refusing to sign it, by asking for a new deliberation. As an arbitrator, he can appoint the Head of Government; he can also dissolve. Guarantor of the State, the President is the head of the armed forces and can have exceptional powers under Article 16 of the Constitution. This latitude of action is manifested by 'the reserved domain of the President of the Republic', an expression coined by Jacques Chaban-Delmas, which refers to the domain in which he would be alone competent to intervene4. [...]
[...] This Executive, particularly the President of the Republic, is central. Many forms exist to illustrate this situation: a President 'key to the vault that covers and welds the edifice of our institutions' and 'placed above the parties'3, a presidentialist regime or even a hyper-presidency Article 5 is one of the unprecedented provisions contained in the 1958 Constitution. Never in previous Constitutions had an article defined the presidential function globally and specified in this way the principles and values that the President of the Republic should respect. [...]
