French Fifth Republic of the election on 9 January 1959. The new president began his office on that date, appointing Michel Debré as Prime Minister. The 1958 constitution also replaced the French Union with the French Community, which allowed fourteen member territories (these did not include Algeria) to assert their independence. 1960 became known as the "Year of Africa" because of this wave of newly independent states. Algeria became independent on 5 July 1962. The president was initially elected by an electoral college, but in 1962 de Gaulle proposed that the president be directly elected by the citizens, and held a referendum on
Constitutional amendments under the French Fifth Republic Congress. However, the composition of the said Council would be reformed via the constitutional amendment of July 23, 2008. Jacques Chirac presented a bill about French Polynesia and New Caledonia. Filed on 26 May 1999, it was adopted by both houses on October 12. The decree of 3 November 1999 intending to submit these two bills in the Parliament in Congress January 24, 2000, but was removed from consideration by the decree of the President of the Republic of . Later these collectivities will be globally affected by the constitutional revision of 28 March 2003 on the decentralized organization of