Il regime politico della Terza repubblica francese

The political system of the Third Republic

Abstract

The constitutional laws of 1875 were the result of a long and complex founding process, whose outcome was the first "parliamentary republic" in European history, Their actual working has been sensibly different from the model that may be read in their text, inspired to an orleanist type of parliamentary government. After the constitutional crisis of 1877, the practice has created an unbalanced parliamentary system of government, under the hegemony of the two Chambers of Parliament, with a weak President and an unstable Cabinet. Yet, the republican constitution adopted in France in 1875 has been the base on which the principles of the French revolution have shaped a stable republican form of government, that lasted for almost 70 years and that became a model for other European constitutions after the end of World War I. The article tries to explain the actual working of the French institutions between 1870 and 1940 and their distance from the constitutional laws that regulated them.

Keywords: Parliament; Council of ministers; Senate; Political instability; Cabinet crisis