Presidential election in France in 1958

The 1958 French presidential election was the first of the Fifth Republic and took place on December 21, 1958. In contrast to the later elections, it was not a direct election by the people , but an election by an electoral body . For president was elected in the first of two possible ballots General Charles de Gaulle . Next to de Gaulle, the communist Georges Marrane and the mathematician Albert Châtelet were candidates . This was nominated by an association called Union des forces démocratiques led by François Mitterrand , whose members opposed the consent of the center-left parties ( SFIO , Parti radical ) for de Gaulle against his return to the top of the state and therefore nominated an opponent had.

The term of office of the President was then seven years (" Septennat "); the number of re-elections was not limited at that time.

Basics

According to Articles 6 and 7 of the new Constitution , the President of the Republic was elected for a period of 7 years by an electoral college (Collège électoral) .

In order to implement the concise provisions of the constitution, the government had issued an executive ordinance with the force of law on November 7, 1958, based on a special authorization in the transitional provisions of the constitution. This also determined the election of the electors to be determined by the municipalities and the casting of votes. Votes were cast at the main locations in the individual departments .

Candidates had to be proposed to the Constitutional Council by at least 50 electors at least 12 days before the first round of voting and had to approve their candidacy.

An absolute majority was required to vote in the first ballot . Had this not won a candidate, a relative majority would have been sufficient in a second ballot .

The election of December 21, 1958 remained the only indirect presidential election of the Fifth Republic. On 28. October 1962 French citizens voted in a referendum a constitutional amendment to. The law adopted in this referendum changed the constitution so that the president should now be elected by direct election.

Electoral College

According to Article 6 of the Constitution, the electoral college consisted of:

• the members of the National Assembly and (theoretically) the Senate , although the latter was not yet elected,
• all members of the general councils of the départements and the representative bodies of the overseas territories ,
• the mayors of the municipalities ,
• a number of councilors and other representatives of the municipal councils of municipalities with more than 1,000 inhabitants, graduated according to the size of the municipality ,
• Representatives of the Member States of the French Community .

Electors who were members of the general councils or representative bodies of the regional authorities and at the same time members of parliament had to appoint a substitute representative in the former capacity, who was appointed by the chairman of the general council or other representative body as an elector. Electors who, as mayor, alderman or municipal council, would have been electors of the municipalities by law, but at the same time already belonged to the electoral college as members of parliament, a general council or a representative body of a regional authority. These were replaced as community representatives by the next-ranking member of the community council.

The college consisted of 81,764 electors, including

• 76,346 from the motherland ,
• 1,262 from the overseas departments of Guadeloupe , French Guiana , Martinique and Réunion ,
• 79 from Algeria ,
• 220 from the Sahara (Oasis and Saoura departments),
• 214 from the overseas territories of Comoros , French Somaliland , New Caledonia , French Polynesia and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
• and 3,643 from the member states of the French Community, namely Dahomey , Ivory Coast , Gabon , Madagascar , Mauritania , Central Congo , Niger , Upper Volta , Senegal , Sudan , Chad and Ubangi-Shari .

The electors from the overseas territories were given the right to vote in the Seine department instead of in their own department . Thirteen Algerian electors made use of this and were thus counted as electors for the Seine department when the results were determined.

Voting was compulsory for electors . The unexcused failure to participate in the election could be punished with a fine of up to 3,000 francs .

A total of 81,290 electors cast their vote, of which 79,470 were valid.

Official end result

On January 8, 1959, the provisional constitutional commission determined the official final result as follows:

Official end result

candidate	be right	proportion of
Charles de Gaulle	62,394	78.51%
Georges Marrane	10,355	13.03%
Albert Châtelet	06,721	08.46%

Since Charles de Gaulle had received more than half of the valid votes, he was declared to have been elected President of the Republic and the Community in the first ballot.

See also

• List of heads of state of France
• Political system of France

Footnotes

1. ^ Constitution of October 4, 1958, JORF of October 5, 1958, p. 9151
2. ↑ Ordonnance n ° 58-1064 du 7 novembre 1958 portant loi organique relative à l'élection du Président de la République , JORF of 9 October 1958, p. 10126
3. ^ Art. 1 of Ordonnance n ° 58-1064
4. ↑ Article 7, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution of October 4, 1958
5. ^ Conseil constitutionnel , Proclamation des résultats du référendum du 28 octobre 1962, JORF of 7 November 1962, p. 10775
6. ↑ Loi n ° 62-1292 relative à l'élection du Président de la République au suffrage universel , JORF of November 7, 1962, p. 10762
7. ↑ Art. 7 of Ordonnance n ° 58-1064
8. ^ ^{A b} Commission constitutionnelle provisoire , Proclamation des résultats du scrutin du 21 December 1958 pour l'élection du Président de la République, Président de la Communauté, JORF of January 9, 1959, p. 673.
9. ↑ Ordonnance n ° 58-1215 du 15 December 1958 complétant l'ordonnande n ° 58-1064 du 7 November 1958 portant loi organique relative à l'élection du Président de la République , JORF of 16 December 1958, p. 11279
10. ↑ Art. 15 of Ordonnance n ° 58-1064