The Parliamentary Opposition and the Senate Under the French Fifth Republic
The Parliamentary Opposition and the Senate Under the French Fifth Republic

Summary/Abstract: The paper is devoted to the role of the French Senate (under the constitution of the Fifth Republic) as an organ that can remain a tool in the hands of opposition to the government. It has been pointed out that in the French formula of the semi-presidential system, which was created as a result of the rationalisation of a parliamentary model, bicameralism may be the field of special expansion of the executive which aims at the effective implementation of its own legislative activities. The author argues that this has a particularly negative impact on the status of the parliamentary opposition. This is the case even when the opposition has a majority in the Senate. The French second chamber, although the body is relatively strong, can be neutralised in legislative proceedings designed to implement the government’s programme. The author analyses the problem of marginalising the parliamentary opposition in relation to the two major political arrangements of the Fifth Republic: the so-called majority effect (the executive branch is politically homogeneous) and cohabitation (the executive branch is politically divided).

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