The Constitutional Ideas of Michel Debré

Abstract

The institutions of the Fifth Republic are so closely associated with the ideas and style of Charles de Gaulle that the contribution of others is often overlooked. Yet the strictly constitutional innovations of the 1958 regime were largely the work of the General’s advisors, none of whom had greater influence than Michel Debré. Recognition of this came with Debré’s nomination as Minister of Justice in June 1958 and his assignment to the job of drafting the new constitution. To this task he brought over ten years of intense and detailed criticism of existing French political institutions. His activity in the wartime underground, his counsel as a member of de Gaulle’s post-Liberation staff, his leadership role in the Gaullist movement, and his speeches in the parliament of the Fourth Republic were all stages in the refinement of his constitutional ideas. But above all, Debré based his work as a “founding father” upon a fully developed model of French government that had its origins in his prewar reflections and that was matured during long debates with his Resistance comrades.