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France

Country in western Europe, bounded to the northeast by Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany, east by Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, south by the Mediterranean Sea, southwest by Spain and Andorra, and west by the Atlantic Ocean.

Government

Under the 1958 Fifth Republic constitution, amended in 1962 and 1995, France has a two-chamber legislature and a ‘shared executive’ government. The legislature comprises a national assembly, with 577 deputies elected for five-year terms from single-member constituencies following a two-ballot run-off majority system, and a senate, whose 321 members are chosen, a half at a time every three years, for six-year terms, by an electoral college of around 145,000 locally elected councillors.

Twenty-two national-assembly and 13 senate seats are elected by overseas départements (administrative regions) and territories, and 12 senate seats by French nationals abroad. The national assembly is the dominant chamber. The senate can temporarily veto legislation, but its vetoes can be overridden by the national assembly. Before 2008 its members were elected every three years for nine-year terms. The senate will have 346 seats from 2010.

France's executive is functionally divided between the president and prime minister. The president, elected by direct universal suffrage after gaining a majority in either a first or second run-off ballot, functions as head of state, commander in chief of the armed forces, and guardian of the constitution. A referendum in 2000 reduced the term of the president from seven years to five years, starting in 2002. The president selects the prime minister, presides over cabinet meetings, countersigns government bills, negotiates foreign treaties, and can call referenda and dissolve the national assembly (although only one dissolution a year is permitted).

The prime minister is selected from the ranks of the national assembly. According to the constitution, ultimate control over policymaking rests with the prime minister and council of ministers.

The president and prime minister work with ministers from political and technocratic backgrounds, assisted by a skilled and powerful civil service. A nine-member constitutional council (selected every three years in a staggered manner by the state president and the presidents of the senate and national assembly, and serving nine-year, non-renewable terms) and a Conseil d'Etat (‘council of state’), staffed by senior civil servants, rule on the legality of legislation passed. At the local level there are 21 regional councils concerned with economic planning. Below these are 96 département councils and over 36,000 town and village councils. Corsica has its own directly elected 61-seat parliament with powers to propose amendments to national-assembly legislation.

There are four overseas départements (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Réunion) with their own elected general and regional councils, six overseas ‘collectivities’, or ‘collectivités d'outre-mer’ (COM) – French Polynesia, Mayotte, St Barthélemy and St Martin (both in the Lesser Antilles), St Pierre and Miquelon, the Wallis and Futuna Islands – with a variety of councils; New Caledonia, which has a unique status between that of an independent country and an overseas department; and one overseas territory, the French Southern and Antarctic Territories, with appointed high commissioners but which form constituent parts of the French Republic, returning deputies to the national legislature.

History For earlier periods of French history, see France: history to 1515, France: history 1515–1815, and France: history 1815–1945.

The aftermath of World War II

With Allied support, France was liberated in August 1944 and a ‘united front’ provisional government formed, headed by General Charles de Gaulle and including communists, while a new constitution was being framed. Although Paris was physically undamaged in World War II, many cities, such as Brest, Rouen, Lorient, Le Havre, and Caen, were in ruins. The French had suffered considerable economic privations during the years 1940–44 and there was high inflation.

In addition, France's pre-1939 colonial empire was on the verge of disintegration. Syria and Lebanon had already achieved independence; the French West Africa possessions were demanding at least a measure of self-government, and some nationalists were calling for outright independence. In Indochina (now Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) the communists and other nationalists soon launched a full-scale war of independence against France (the Indochina War). These colonial problems drained France's economy severely in the post-war years and had considerable repercussions on internal French politics.

Towards a new constitution

De Gaulle's interim administration helped restore a sense of national unity and introduced pragmatic social and economic reforms, including the nationalization of strategic enterprises, the extension of the franchise to women, and the creation of a modern social security system. In 1945 French women voted for the first time to help elect a constituent assembly tasked with drawing up a constitution for a Fourth Republic. The Communists, after playing an important role in the wartime resistance, won the most seats, closely followed by the Socialists and the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP), a new group of the progressive centre drawing considerable strength from former Catholic resistance fighters.

In January 1946 de Gaulle resigned as interim president because the proposed constitution provided for a powerful parliament and weak figurehead president (elected by parliament) in the manner of the Third Republic. He favoured a strong presidentialist system.

The new constitution was approved in a referendum in October 1946.

The Fourth Republic (1946–58): general characteristics and developments

France's Fourth Republic saw a succession of weak and short-lived governments – 26 between 1946 and 1958 – because numerous small party groupings were able to achieve Assembly representation. In these circumstances, real power passed to the civil service, which, by introducing a new system of ‘indicative economic planning’, engineered rapid economic reconstruction. Peaceful decolonization of Morocco and Tunisia in 1956 and the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958 were also important achievements. In contrast, the forcible expulsion of the French from Indochina in 1954 was for many a national humiliation, and the bitter colonial conflict in Algeria brought about the demise of the Fourth Republic itself.

The Blum government of 1946–47

In the November 1946 elections, the Communists remained the largest single party, but the majority in the assembly was anticommunist, with the Socialists holding the balance of power. In December 1946 Léon Blum formed a minority Socialist government, which sought to tackle rising prices, financial instability, and the Indochinese question, where the French were attempting to regain control of their colonies from the nationalists, who had themselves ousted the Japanese-sponsored regime at the end of World War II. The government also laid the foundations of a new Anglo-French entente. In January 1947 the assembly installed as first president of the new republic the Socialist Vincent Auriol, a close friend and colleague of Blum.

Political instability 1947 to 1952

Blum resigned in January 1947 on health grounds and was succeeded by Paul Ramadier (also Socialist). He headed a coalition, which lasted until November 1947. But with the economy deteriorating, deepening divisions soon emerged in the government between the Communists and the rest of the ministers, and the Communists soon left the government after voting against the funding of military operations against the nationalists in Indochina and to suppress a revolt in Madagascar. In November 1947 Robert Schuman formed a new government, which lasted until July 1948.

Meanwhile, the political scene was affected by de Gaulle's founding, in 1947, of the Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF, ‘rally of the French people’), a popular national union, which rose to brief prominence before fading and being disbanded in 1953.

In September 1948 the Radical Socialist Henri Queuille formed a new government, which lasted until July 1949, bringing brief political stability. There were rapid changes of government and brief stability under prime minister Georges Bidault between October 1949 and July 1950.

After further short-lived governments, René Pleven became premier in August 1951, and was succeeded in January 1952 by Edgar Faure, a Radical Socialist, who was replaced in March 1952 by Antoine Pinay, an Independent Republican.

International developments

In 1949 France joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a founder member. In May 1950 Robert Schuman, the French foreign minister, put forward his ‘Schuman Plan’, which eventually developed in the European Coal and Steel Community, the basis of what is now the European Union.

By early 1950 the situation in Indochina had become very serious and the premature death of Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, the commander in chief of the army and French high commissioner, made French defeat in the area more likely.

Political developments 1953 to 1959

After a period without a government, France got a new premier, Joseph Laniel, in June 1953. In October 1953 the National Assembly voted in favour of continuing the Indochina War, but the French position there was becoming untenable. In May 1954 the fall of Dien Bien Phu shocked French public opinion deeply, and a month later the government was defeated became prime minister. In July 1954 the fighting in Indochina was ended by an agreement reached at Geneva. This was generally regarded in France as a crushing surrender; the 80-year French occupation of Indochina came formally to an end on 29 April 1955. Mendès-France's North Africa policy eventually led to his defeat in the assembly in February 1955, and he was succeeded by Faure.

Franco-Tunisian home-rule agreements were signed in Paris in June 1955, and in October 1955 the former Moroccan sultan, deposed by the French two years earlier, was restored to his throne. But by this time the bitter armed conflict between nationalists and the French army and settlers in Algeria was becoming serious. While at home political stability was temporarily threatened by the rise of the briefly popular, violently right-wing poujadist. The Saarland referendum in October 1955, with its overwhelming victory for the pro-German parties, was another blow to France.

In November 1955 Faure's government was defeated on a question of electoral reform and in February 1956, after an inconclusive general election, the Socialist Guy Mollet became prime minister. He headed a fragile coalition but lasted longer than any other Fourth Republic prime minister. Moroccan independence was announced in March 1956; but the increasingly critical Algerian situation led to Mollet's fall in June 1957.

In March 1957 France signed the Treaty of Rome, which brought into place, in early 1958, the European Economic Community (EEC). But with inflation and economic stagnation and the insoluble Algerian problem, France was unable to provide leadership to the new Europe.

The coming of the Fifth Republic

In May 1958 a revolt of French settlers and army officers in Algeria against the weak Paris government's handling of the Algerian war led to the overthrow of the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle, who in 1953 had retired from politics, was swept back to power on a wave of popular enthusiasm. He indicated that he must be given the means to take whatever measures he deemed necessary to save France. His policies were approved by a referendum in September 1958 and a new constitution, which provided for a powerful presidential executive and assembly elections based on a two-ballot majoritarian system (rather than proportional representation), came into force in October 1958 for a Fifth Republic.

The de Gaulle era, 1958–69

In December 1958 de Gaulle was elected as the Fifth Republic's first president, with wide executive powers. The franc was devalued, and a series of drastic measures enacted, aimed at stabilizing the economy. In the longer term, the de Gaulle era was one of economic growth and large-scale rural-to-urban migration. The relationship between France and its overseas possessions was re-examined: those territories wishing to retain ties with France entered the French Community, which had superseded the French Union. Guinea, however, voted for separation from France and became an independent state without French connections in October 1958. By 1961 so many overseas possessions had gained independence within the French Community that the Community itself was dissolved.

France's economy grew strongly, with per capita GDP almost doubling between 1960 and 1970 and large-scale rural-urban migration. France also adopted a new independent foreign policy and its own autonomous nuclear deterrent force, the force de frappe, and, while initially retaining friendly relations with Britain and the USA, de Gaulle promoted closer Franco-German relations. This ended a period of hatred and mistrust that had lasted since 1870. Close economic and cultural links were established and in January 1963 de Gaulle and the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer signed the Franco-German ‘reconciliation treaty’ in Paris.

De Gaulle's decision that the Algerian problem could be solved only by granting full independence to the nationalists caused bitterness among the settlers and officers who had brought him to power in the expectation that he would win the war there for France. There were abortive revolts against de Gaulle in Algeria in 1960 and 1961, and several attempts were made on his life, then and later, by supporters of the Organization de l'Armée Secrète (OAS), which during 1960–61 carried out a systematic terrorist campaign in both Algeria and France. As time passed it attracted some of de Gaulle's foremost original supporters, such as Gen Raoul Salan, Georges Bidault, and Jacques Soustelle, but by 1963 the OAS was a spent force. Algeria became independent in 1962, after a referendum had approved de Gaulle's policy there.

Despite some criticisms that de Gaulle's government was too centralized, sometimes riding roughshod over democratic principles, his supporters won an overall majority in the November 1962 national assembly elections. Under de Gaulle, France dominated the European Economic Community, and in January 1963 vetoed Britain's application to join it. De Gaulle distrusted Britain's motives, and was suspicious of Britain's ties with the USA at a time when France was attempting to become the leader of a third ‘European’ force, which would be independent of both the Soviet and the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ (Anglo-American) blocs. This pronouncedly independent line was to show itself in France's withdrawal of its fleets from NATO commands, in its first atomic-bomb test in 1960 and hydrogen-bomb test in 1968, and in de Gaulle's outspoken criticism in 1965 of US policy in Vietnam.

In 1965 de Gaulle was re-elected president. In a direct popular vote, he won the run-off second ballot, defeating his left-wing opponent François Mitterrand. De Gaulle continued with his independent approach to foreign policy. He took tough action with the EEC in the course of 1966, and in the same year announced the French withdrawal from the integrated military command of NATO, with complete withdrawal to occur in 1969. Nevertheless, de Gaulle's position seemed uncertain. His paternalistic approach to domestic affairs, reflected in censorship and centralization, brought about a public reaction, and in the general elections of 1967 the Gaullists and the ‘right coalition’ won only a bare majority.

In May 1968 a student revolt, largely in the Latin Quarter of Paris, was followed by the most extensive wave of strikes that France had known since 1936. The government was severely shaken, but de Gaulle recovered. He called assembly elections in June 1968 and, running on a law and order platform, the Gaullist Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR) won a landslide victory; and in July 1968 Maurice Couve de Murville was appointed prime minister. By November 1969 de Gaulle was in a sufficiently strong position to refuse to devalue the franc. But after losing a referendum on reform of the Senate and local government, in April 1969 de Gaulle resigned the presidency and retired from political affairs, at the age of 79.

Pompidou's presidency, 1969–74

Georges Pompidou, who had been prime minister under de Gaulle 1962–68, was elected president in June 1969. He pursued Gaullist policies, such as retaining independent possession of nuclear weapons, the desire for understanding with communist countries, and a critical attitude towards Israel. But he was more conciliatory in many spheres, particularly towards Great Britain's membership of the EEC, which his meeting with the British prime minister Edward Heath in 1971 made possible. At home Pompidou was cautious. He was alarmed both by the increase of left-wing support (as shown in the elections of 1973 that reduced the Gaullist majority) and by the number of scandals affecting Gaullist politicians. But France remained prosperous, and Pompidou saw no threat to his position, until he was stricken with illness and died in April 1974.

Giscard's presidency, 1974–81

In a second ballot of the presidential election, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, leader of the centre-right Independent Republicans, rallied most of the Gaullists and moderates, as well as the right wing, to beat the Communist–Socialist coalition, led by Mitterrand.

Giscard sought to present an informal image and to set the country on a new more modernist course, introducing liberalizing reforms with laws that made it easier to obtain divorce and abortion. He also lowered the minimum age of voting from 21 to 18, relaxed censorship, and reformed the education system. He followed Gaullist principles by insisting on the primacy of French interests and of French nuclear weapons, but in the European Community he played a more active and cooperative role than his predecessors.

Giscard faced opposition, however, from his ambitious ‘right coalition’ partner Jacques Chirac, who was prime minister 1974–76; he also had to contend with deteriorating international economic conditions. France performed better than many of its European competitors in the period 1974–81, with the president launching a major nuclear-power programme to save on energy imports and, while Raymond Barre was prime minister (1976–81), a new, liberal ‘freer market’ economic strategy. During this period the Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF; Union for French Democracy) was formed to unite several centre-right parties and in 1976 Chirac formed a new neo-Gaullist party, the Rassemblement pour la République (Rally for the Republic, or RPR). However, with 1.7 million unemployed, Giscard was defeated by Socialist Party leader François Mitterrand in the May 1981 presidential election.

Mitterrand's first term: 1981–88

Mitterrand's victory was the first presidential success for the ‘left coalition’ during the Fifth Republic, and was immediately succeeded by a landslide victory for the Parti Socialiste (PS; Socialist Party) and Parti Communiste Français (PCF; French Communist Party) in the June 1981 national assembly elections.

The new administration introduced a radical programme of social reform, decentralization, and nationalization, and passed a series of reflationary budgets aimed at reducing unemployment.

But financial constraints forced a switch towards a more conservative policy of rigueur (‘austerity’) in 1983. A U-turn in economic policy was completed in 1984 when the prime minister, Pierre Mauroy, was replaced by Laurent Fabius, prompting the resignation of PCF members of the cabinet. An international scandal was created in July 1985 when the ship Rainbow Warrior, belonging to the environmental organization Greenpeace, whose opposition to nuclear testing annoyed France, was sunk in New Zealand by French secret-service agents.

Unemployment rose to over 2.5 million in 1985–86, increasing racial tension in urban areas. The extreme right-wing National Front, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, benefited from this and from the recent adoption of a new proportional representation system, and won 35 seats in the March 1986 national assembly elections. The ‘left coalition’ lost its majority, the PCF having been in decline for some years. The PS, however, had emerged as France's single most popular party.

‘Cohabitation’ between Mitterrand and Chirac 1986–88

From 1958 to 1986 the president and prime minister had been drawn from the same party coalition, and the president had been allowed to dominate in both home and foreign affairs. In 1986 Mitterrand was obliged to appoint as prime minister the leader of the opposition, Jacques Chirac, who emerged as the dominant force in a ‘shared executive’, known as ‘cohabitation’. Chirac established himself as the dominant force domestically in the shared executive and introduced a radical ‘new conservative’ programme of denationalization, deregulation, and ‘desocialization’, using the decree powers and the parliamentary guillotine to steamroller measures through. But his educational and economic changes encountered serious opposition from militant students and striking workers, necessitating embarrassing policy concessions.

Mitterand's second term: 1988–95 and Rocard's progressive programme 1988–91

Divisions within the ranks of the ‘right coalition’ enabled Mitterand to comfortably defeat Chirac in the May 1988 presidential election and the Socialists emerged as the largest single political party after the June 1988 national assembly elections. Mitterrand appointed Michel Rocard, a moderate social democrat, as prime minister heading a minority PS government that included several centre-party representatives. Rocard implemented a progressive programme, aimed at protecting the underprivileged and improving the quality of life. In June 1988 he negotiated the Matignon Accord, designed to resolve a dispute between indigenous Kanaks and French settlers in the overseas territory of New Caledonia, which was later approved by referendum. Between 1988 and 1990 France enjoyed a strong economic upturn and attention focused increasingly on quality of life, with Les Verts (the Green Party) gaining 11% of the national vote in the European Parliament elections of June 1989.

Racial tensions

Although the extreme-right Front National (FN; National Front) had been virtually eliminated from the national assembly in 1988 by the reintroduction of single-member constituencies, it continued to do well in municipal elections. This persuaded the government to adopt a harder line against illegal immigration. New programmes were announced for the integration of Muslim immigrants – from Algeria, Tunisia, and other areas with French colonial ties – into mainstream French society. Religious and cultural tensions increased. A commission set up to look at the problems of immigrant integration reported in 1991 that France's foreign population was 3.7 million (6.8% of the population), the same as in 1982. However, 10 million citizens were of ‘recent foreign origin’.

The Gulf War

In September 1990, after Iraqi violation of the French ambassador's residence in Kuwait, the French government dispatched 5,000 troops to Saudi Arabia. Despite France's previously close ties with Iraq (including arms sales), French military forces played a prominent role within the US-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War. Defence minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement resigned in February 1991 in opposition to this strategy, but the majority of people in the country – which has the largest Muslim population in western Europe – supported the government's stance.

Mitterrand's popularity in decline: 1991–93

In April 1991 the neo-Gaullist RPR and the UDF, France's main, usually factious, right-of-centre opposition parties, signed a formal election pact. In May, after disagreements over economic policy, Mitterrand replaced Rocard with Edith Cresson, saying that her experience as a former member of the European Parliament and minister for European affairs would be important for France's future in Europe.

But, with the economy in recession, racial tensions increasing, discontent among farmers, militancy among public-sector workers, and the reputation of the PS tarnished by a number of financial scandals, the popularity of Mitterand and Cresson slumped during 1991, and in the March 1992 regional council elections the PS captured only 18% of the national vote. Mitterrand appointed Pierre Bérégovoy to replace Cresson in April 1992. As finance minister, he had been blamed by Cresson for the nation's economic troubles, but he was respected by the country's financial community. In a referendum in September 1992 the Maastricht Treaty on European union was narrowly endorsed.

‘Cohabitation’ with Balladur: 1993–95

The PS suffered a heavy defeat in the March 1993 national-assembly elections, during the recession, with unemployment exceeding 10%. The PS's national poll share was its lowest since the parliamentary election of 1968. Mitterrand appointed Edouard Balladur of the conservative RPR as prime minister, to head the second ‘cohabitation’ government of his presidency. In the aftermath of the PS defeat, Bérégovoy committed suicide. Michel Rocard was chosen to replace him as PS leader, but resigned in June 1994 after the PS polled poorly in the European elections. He was replaced by Henri Emmanuelli.

Balladur proved a popular prime minister but encountered opposition to his tight immigration and privatization policies and his proposals for local-government funding of private schools, which put him at odds with President Mitterrand. His employment legislation, reducing the minimum wage paid to young workers, was criticized by unions and the PS, and he abandoned these proposals after protest demonstrations were followed by a revival of the left in local elections. With Mitterrand in failing health, Balladur emerged as the dominant force in the ‘cohabitation’ administration. With the French economy recovery his popularity increased, before falling in autumn 1994 after several of his ministers were implicated in corruption scandals and resigned. Financial scandals also damaged the PS, made worse by the revelation of the use of HIV-infected blood in transfusions under earlier Socialist governments.

French influence in central Africa was severely weakened by the fall of president Mobutu in Zaire, following the collapse in 1994 of the regime France had supported in Rwanda.

Chirac's first term: 1995–2002

In the run-up to the 1995 presidential election, the conservative RPR faced deep divisions, as both the party leader, Jacques Chirac, and the prime minister, Balladur, contested for the presidency. But Balladur, whose reputation had suffered from his alleged involvement in a telephone-tapping affair and his admission that he had profited from share dealings, rapidly lost ground to Chirac, who presented himself as a ‘man of the people’, promising action against ‘social exclusion’, more jobs, higher public-sector wages, and a more relaxed economic policy to stimulate recovery. After the PS took a surprising lead in the first ballot, Balladur dropped out of the contest. Chirac, at the head of a ‘right coalition’, was elected president in May 1995, narrowly defeating the PS candidate Lionel Jospin. He appointed the former foreign minister and pro-European Alain Juppé as prime minister.

Early problems: 1995–97

Chirac began his pre sidency by announcing that France would resume nuclear-weapons testing in the Pacific region. This decision was widely condemned and the first test on Mururoa atoll provoked anticolonial riots in Tahiti. The government soon backtracked and, in January 1996, announced an end to its nuclear-weapons testing programme in the south Pacific and called for a worldwide test ban. In March 1996 a treaty with the USA and Britain was signed that made the south Pacific a nuclear-free zone.

At home, national security measures were announced in the wake of a terrorist bombing campaign mounted by Algerian guerrillas and in May 1996 there was a fresh outbreak of terrorist violence by the outlawed National Corsican Liberation Front. Despite high unemployment and a sluggish economy, the government pursued an austere economic policy, cutting government spending in real terms in order to reduce the fiscal deficit to enable France to qualify for European Monetary Union in 1999. But in November and December 1995 nationwide public-sector strikes – the worst since 1968 – brought the nation's transport system to a virtual standstill and sharply reduced Chirac's popularity.

‘Cohabitation’ with the Socialists 1997–2002

In March 1997 unemployment reached a post-war high of 12.8% of the workforce, but the economy began to revive. This persuaded President Chirac to call assembly elections a year early, in spring 1997, with the aim of securing a mandate for further austerity measures. But his tactic backfired and the elections were won by the PS, who opposed the austerity measures, and the far-right FN won 15% of the vote.

The PS leader Lionel Jospin became prime minister in June 1997 and unveiled plans to create 35,000 new jobs in the public sector over the coming two and a half years, mainly for 18–25-year-olds, over a quarter of whom were unemployed. In February 1998, the National Assembly passed a law to reduce the working week from 39 hours to 35 hours, starting in 2000. And in January 1998, after, after nationwide protests by unemployed people, who marched and occupied welfare offices, demanding additional financial assistance, Prime Minister Jospin agreed to set up a FFr 1 billion fund to help the unemployed through retraining and other measures.

The Jospin government also made a number of key policy U-turns: it allowed privatization of state holdings in Air France and France Telecom, and broke a promise to abolish recently introduced tough immigration laws. Its pragmatic approach provided the basis for an economic recovery. In 1998, French GDP grew by over 3%, its best performance during the 1990s, and the unemployment rate fell to 11%. Overall, between 1997 and 2002 French unemployment fell by 900,000, tax rates were lowered and additional health insurance provided to those on lower incomes. This brought strong levels of popularity for Prime Minister Jospin.

Corsica, fuel protests and political scandals

But the Jospin government faced challenges from events in Corsica, where a scandal led to the sacking and detention of the prefect there. In July 2000, in an attempt to end 20 years of violence on the island, Jospin proposed a single political and administrative body with limited independent law-making powers. The plan was overwhelmingly approved by the Corsican Assembly (the regional parliament), but was conditional on an end to violence.

In the summer of 2000 there was a wave of disruptive protests over fuel prices and petrol taxes. The protests involved the blockading of oil refineries, halting deliveries of fuel, by lorry drivers, farmers, ambulance workers and taxi drivers were successful as the government made tax concessions on fuel.

In 2001 the political classes were rocked by a series of scandals. In May 2001, the former foreign minister, Roland Dumas, was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to six months imprisonment in connection with a corruption scandal involving Elf-Aquitaine, a state-owned oil company.

In March 2001, President Chirac refused on constitutional grounds to testify before a tribunal investigating corrupt financing of his party in Paris when he was mayor. And in July 2001, Chirac rejected suggestions that he had received £240,000 in bribes, allegedly spent on holidays for himself and his family and friends.

On 1 January 2002, euro notes and coins were introduced as France's national currency.

Chirac's second term: 2002–07

Jospin contested the 2002 presidential election, but finished in third position in the first round in April, behind Chirac and the FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Despite his government's record of economic success, Jospin was criticized from the right for being too soft on crime, disorder and immigration control, while the left was critical of his moderate economic policy. Jospin's elimination galvinized voters from the moderate right, centre and left behind the 69-year-old Chirac to keep out Le Pen. Despite securing less than 20% of the first round vote, Chirac secured a clear second-round victory in May 2002, capturing 82% of the vote (the highest ever margin of victory in the Fifth Republic). Nevertheless, Le Pen attracted 5.5 million votes (720,000 more than in the first round) in an 80% turnout, provoking widespread European concern about the increasing popularity of far-right parties.

The parties of the centre-right united to contest the June 2002 national assembly elections, forming the Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle (UMP; Union for the Presidential Majority, later renamed the Union for a Popular Movement), an alliance of the RPR, centrist Liberal Democracy (DL) party and the UDF. It won a landlside victory, securing 399 of the National Assembly's 577 seats, while the Socialists dropped by 101 seats to 140.

French opposition to US military action in Iraq

After the June 2002 elections, Chirac appointed Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the moderate deputy leader of the centrist DL as prime minister. The government sought to reform the public pensions, but this provoked strikes in 2003. Also in early 2003 France took the lead in seeking, but without success, to dissuade the USA from invading Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Chirac considered that Iraq did ‘not represent an immediate threat that justifies an immediate war’ and at one stage he threatened to veto a UN Security Council resolution to authorize the use of military force against Iraq.

Defeat in EU referendum

In May 2005, the French voted ‘no’ against government advice, in a referendum on the proposed EU constitution. Following this result, and reverses for the right in local elections, Raffarin resigned as prime minister, Chirac replaced him with his protégé, the former diplomat, Dominique de Villepin, who, as foreign minister during the Iraq crisis in 2003, had gained an international profile for his addresses to the UN.

With a sluggish economy and unpopular policies, public support for Chirac and his government fell steadily from 2005. In autumn 2005 there was civil unrest in the Paris suburbs of Clichy-sous-Bois, after the death of two young boys. And in March 2006 there were widespread student and workers' protests against a controversial new employment law which made it easier for employers to dismiss young workers. The standing of Chirac and de Villepin was undermined also by controversy concerning an alleged secret investigation into a political rival and financial transactions when Chirac was mayor of Paris in the early 1990s. By late 2006, Chirac's standing in public opinion polls was at an all-time low for a president in the Fifth Republic, and in March 2007 he announced that he would not seek a third term as president.

The Sarkozy presidency

Chirac's decision to retire left Nicolas Sarkozy, the leader of the UMP from 2004, and a former finance and interior minister under President Chirac, a clear run for the presidency. He comfortably defeated the Socialist candidate, Ségolene Royal, in the May 2007 second round of the presidential election. Sarkozy, a controversial figure in French politics, took a hard line on law-and-order issues and favoured a more market-centred approach to economic management, on the UK and American model, to revitalize the economy. He also advocated closer cooperation with the USA and the UK in foreign affairs.

The UMP won a clear majority, winning 313 of 577 seats, in the June 2007 national assembly elections and Sarkozy appointed Francois Fillon as prime minister. Fillon, from the UMP, was a close political adviser to Sarkozy and had been labour and education minister in the Raffarin governments. But his cabinet was broad-based, including four ministers from the left, including as foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Medecins sans Frontieres. The new government moved quickly to reduce taxes, including inheritance tax.

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