De Gaulle founds the French Fifth Republic

On May 13, 1958 French settlers and army officers in Algiers seized government buildings and set up a Committee of Public Safety. They feared that Paris would give up Algeria, then part of France with about a million European settlers living among roughly nine million Muslims. The committee demanded that Charles de Gaulle, the wartime leader who had retired in 1946, return to power. Within weeks France had a new government, and within months a new constitution: the Fifth Republic, which is still in force.³

The Fourth Republic had never been stable. Its parliament, with weak governments that fell constantly, produced more than twenty cabinets in twelve years. It had also lost a long colonial war in Indochina, ending at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and faced the Algerian war of independence that began that autumn. Many officers felt politicians had betrayed them once and might do so again over Algeria, which France had ruled since the conquest of Algiers in 1830. Fearing a military coup or civil war, President Rene Coty asked de Gaulle to become prime minister. De Gaulle took office on June 1, 1958 with special powers.³

De Gaulle had a clear idea of the state he wanted: a strong executive, above party quarrels. The constitution, drafted largely by Michel Debre, gave the president power to appoint the prime minister, call referendums, dissolve the National Assembly and use emergency powers. Voters approved it in a referendum on September 28, 1958 by about 80 percent, and de Gaulle was chosen president that December. A 1962 referendum made the presidency directly elected. To the settlers' dismay, he then negotiated Algerian independence, ratified in 1962.¹²