A republican regime was given way again in 1870 through the Third Republic, after the fall of Napoleon III. A 1962 referendum held under the Fifth Republic at the request of President Charles de Gaulle transferred the election of the president of France from an electoral college to a popular vote. Since then, ten presidential elections have taken place. The 25th and current officeholder has been Emmanuel Macron since 14 May 2017.
The Directory was officially led by a president, as stipulated by Article 141 of the Constitution of the Year III. An entirely ceremonial post, the first president was Jean-François Rewbell, who was chosen by lot on 2 November 1795. The Directors conducted their elections privately, with the presidency rotating every three months.[1] The last President was Louis-Jérôme Gohier.[2]
The leading figure of the Directory was Paul Barras, the only director to serve throughout the Directory.
After the Coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799), Barras, Ducos, and Sieyès resigned. Moulin and Gohier, refusing to resign, were arrested by General Moreau.
Elected Chief of the Executive Power by the National Assembly, following the Siege of Paris, and established a government with a republican majority. After fighting to re-establish state control over the Paris Commune and securing the withdrawal of the German Army from France, he was elected President of the Republic by the National Assembly.
Initially a moderate monarchist, named President of France following the adoption of the Rivet law, establishing provisional republican institutions. He became a supporter of the Third Republic during his term. He resigned in the face of hostility from the National Assembly, largely in favour of a return to the monarchy.
A Marshal of France, he was the only monarchist (and only Duke) to serve as President of the Third Republic. He resigned shortly after the republican victory in the January 1879 legislative election, following a previous republican victory in 1877, after his decision to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. During his term, the Constitutional Laws of 1875 that served as the Constitution of the Third Republic were passed; he therefore became the first President under the constitutional settlement that would last until 1940.
The first President of France to complete a full term, he was easily reelected in December 1885. He was nonetheless forced to resign, following an honours scandal in which his son-in-law was implicated.
His term was marked by Boulangist unrest and the Panama scandals, as well as by diplomacy with Russia. Assassinated (stabbed) by Sante Geronimo Caserio a few months before the end of his term, he is interred at the Panthéon.
Pursued colonial expansion and ties with Russia. President during the Dreyfus affair. Four years into his term, he died of apoplexy at the Élysée Palace.
The Government of Charles Dupuy deputized during the interim (16–18 February 1899).
President during the Agadir Crisis, when French troops first occupied Morocco. He was a party to the Triple Entente, which he strengthened by diplomacy. Like his predecessor, he did not seek reelection.
An intellectual elected to the Académie Française, he overcame the popular Georges Clemenceau, to general surprise, in the January 1920 election. He resigned after eight months due to health problems.
An "Independent Socialist" increasingly drawn to the right, he resigned after four years following the victory of the Cartel des Gauches in the 1924 legislative election.
The first Protestant President, he took a firm political stance against Germany and its resurgent nationalism. His seven-year term was marked by ministerial discontinuity.
Following the Liberation of France, the Committee of National Liberation evolved into a Provisional Government, with de Gaulle as its Chairman. He resigned abruptly in January 1946, after a failed attempt to centralise executive power.
Elected as Chairman of the Provisional Government in November 1946, overseeing an interim parliamentary government before his accession to President of France.
Founder of the Independent Republicans and later the Union for French Democracy in his efforts to unify the centre-right, he served in several Gaullist governments. Narrowly elected in the 1974 election, he instigated numerous reforms, including the lowering of the age of civil majority from 21 to 18 and legalisation of abortion. He soon faced a global economic crisis and rising unemployment. Although the polls initially gave him a lead, he was defeated in the 1981 election by François Mitterrand, partly due to disunion within the right.
Candidate of a united left-wing ticket in the 1965 election, he founded the Socialist Party in 1971. Having narrowly lost in 1974, he was finally elected in 1981. Mitterrand supervised a series of Great Works, the best known of which is the Louvre Pyramid. He instigated the abolition of the death penalty. After the right-wing victory in the 1986 legislative election, he named Jacques Chirac as Prime Minister, thus beginning the first cohabitation. Reelected in the 1988 election against Chirac, he was again forced to cohabit with Édouard Balladur following the 1993 legislative election. He retired in 1995 after the conclusion of his second term. He was the first left-wing President of the Fifth Republic; his presidential tenure was the longest of any French Republic.