French presidential elections under the Fifth Republic French presidential elections under the Fifth Republic There have been eleven presidential elections in France since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958. Originally the president was elected by the Collège des Notables (an assembly of "notable electors") that included around 80,000 county and city/town councillors (who had been elected locally). Following the 1962 de Gaulle's constitutional reform (the constitutional Act of November 6, 1962) the president has been directly elected by the people of France. Until the French constitutional revision of September 24, 2000, the president had been elected for a seven-year term. Under this revision the term
Constitutional amendments under the French Fifth Republic for final approval, the President of the Republic did not continue the action, as he could not muster the required three-fifths majority in Congress and because of resistance to his project. The bill of 2000 is the first constitutional amendment submitted to referendum pursuant to section 89 of the Constitution. After 73% of "yes" votes on , it passed on October 2. It limited the term of French presidents to five years, but was not applied to the president, Jacques Chirac, who was elected in 1995 for seven years. The main motivation for this revision was to avoid cohabitation, by