France: Parliament, the judiciary and droit administratif, and the multi-party system

1. Parliament: organisation

Since 1995 Parliament sits in a single ordinary session from October to June; extraordinary sessions may be called by decree. The Senate is weighted towards rural France and small communes, which makes it more conservative than the Assembly.

2. Powers and functions

1. Legislation in a limited domain. Article 34 lists the matters on which Parliament makes law: civil rights, nationality, crimes and criminal procedure, taxation, electoral law, nationalisation, and the fundamental principles of defence, local government, education, property, labour and social security. Everything else falls to the government’s regulatory power under Article 37.
2. Delegation. Parliament may authorise the government to legislate by ordinances for a limited period (Article 38).
3. Finance. Votes the budget (finance laws) and social security financing laws. If Parliament fails to act within 70 days, the budget may be brought into force by ordinance.
4. Control of the government. Questions (weekly questions to the government), committees of inquiry, and the motion of censure (only in the Assembly). The 2008 revision added evaluation of public policy to Parliament’s functions (Article 24).
5. Constituent. Both Houses must pass an amendment in identical terms; it is then ratified by referendum or by a three-fifths majority of Parliament in Congress at Versailles.
6. Judicial. Sits as the High Court to remove the President.

The two Houses compared. Bills pass through both Houses; if they disagree after two readings in each (or one if the government has used the accelerated procedure), a joint committee of seven members from each tries to agree a text. If that fails, the government may ask the National Assembly to have the last word (Article 45). Only the Assembly can overthrow the government. The Senate therefore has a strong delaying and revising role, and a full veto only on constitutional amendments and organic laws concerning the Senate.

3. Relations between Legislature and Executive

The framers of 1958 set out to end “government by assembly” of the Third and Fourth Republics. The result is called rationalised parliamentarism:

• Parliament’s law domain is limited (Articles 34 and 37); the Constitutional Council polices the boundary.
• The government controls much of the agenda and may demand a single vote on its own text (vote bloqué, Article 44.3).
• Article 49.3 lets the government pass a bill without a vote unless a censure motion is carried.
• Censure needs an absolute majority of members, and only votes in favour are counted.
• Ministers cannot sit in Parliament (Article 23).
• The President may dissolve the Assembly (Article 12) and appeal to the people by referendum.

Censure succeeded only once in the first sixty years, against Pompidou’s government in 1962; the next was Michel Barnier’s government in December 2024, after the hung Assembly of that year. The 2008 revision gave Parliament back some ground: control of half its agenda, committee texts as the basis of floor debate, and a veto by committees over certain presidential appointments.

4. The French judiciary: features

1. Dual system. Two separate orders of courts, ordinary (judiciaire) and administrative, each with its own supreme court.
2. Career judiciary. Judges are trained civil servants recruited by examination through the École nationale de la magistrature, not senior lawyers.
3. Codified law (the Napoleonic Codes) rather than precedent.
4. Inquisitorial procedure, with an active examining judge in serious criminal cases.
5. The Superior Council of the Magistracy (Article 65) advises on appointments and discipline of judges, safeguarding their independence.
6. Constitutional review lies with a separate body, the Constitutional Council, not the courts.

5. Organisation

A Tribunal of Conflicts decides which order has jurisdiction when a dispute arises. The Constitutional Council (nine members appointed for nine years, three each by the President and the presiding officers of the two Houses, plus former Presidents) reviews laws before promulgation and, since 2010, on a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) referred by the Court of Cassation or the Council of State.

6. Droit administratif and the administrative courts

Droit administratif is the body of rules governing the organisation of the administration and its relations with citizens, decided by administrative courts rather than the ordinary courts. It rests on the revolutionary idea of separation of powers: the ordinary judges of the old regime had obstructed reform, so the law of 16–24 August 1790 forbade them to interfere with the administration.

The Council of State. Created by Napoleon in 1799. It has two roles: it advises the government on bills and decrees, and through its judicial section it is the supreme administrative court. Its case law created most of French administrative law.

Principles.

• Officials and the state are judged by administrative courts under rules different from private law.
• The action for annulment (recours pour excès de pouvoir) lets any interested citizen ask for an illegal administrative act to be quashed, cheaply and without a lawyer at first instance.
• The state is liable for fault of the service (faute de service) and, in some cases, even without fault; the official is personally liable only for personal fault. The Blanco decision of the Tribunal of Conflicts (1873) established that state liability is governed by special rules decided by administrative courts.
• Urgent interim relief (référé) is available, including to protect a fundamental freedom.

Assessment. Dicey saw droit administratif as a privilege for officials, the opposite of the Rule of Law. Later writers (and Dicey himself, in part, in his later writing) recognised that it gives the citizen effective and specialised protection against the state, often more than English law offered. Its weaknesses are delay and complexity of jurisdiction between the two orders.

7. Political parties: a multi-party system

Features. Many parties, with frequent splits, mergers and renaming; parties built around leaders; ideological divisions of left and right overlaid by newer cleavages; and the two-round electoral system, which lets many parties run in the first round and then forces alliances in the second. Coalitions and electoral pacts are therefore normal.

The main forces. On the left, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Greens and La France insoumise; in the centre, the parties grouped around President Macron (Renaissance and allies); on the right, the Republicans, heirs of the Gaullist tradition; and on the far right, the Rassemblement National (formerly Front National). Since 2017 the old alternation of Socialists and Gaullists has broken up into three or more blocs.

Organisation and working. Parties are weakly organised with small memberships compared with British parties; the presidential election, as the decisive contest, makes the candidate more important than the party. In Parliament, parties form groups which receive speaking time and committee places.

How this is examined

For the French legislature (January 2026, Q.4): organisation in the table, then powers with Articles 34, 37 and 38, the relation between the Houses, and relations with the executive. For the judiciary and droit administratif (February 2025): dual system, organisation, Council of State, principles, and the Dicey debate. The administrative courts make a ready short note. The multi-party system is set occasionally as an essay or note.