ABSTRACT
The post-war history of France is full of contradictions. To outward appearances the Fourth Republic was plagued by a degree of political instability that promised to repeat the weaknesses and follies of the Third, which had ended with Vichy’s disgrace. The individualistic French, divided on so many issues and by so many parties and groupings, seemed ill-suited to a parliamentary democracy. De Gaulle certainly believed this when he withdrew from government in January 1946 and then, a little less than a year later in 1947, launched his movement grandly called the Rassemblement du Peuple Français, offering his leadership above party in place of the squabbling, weak politicians who by their jostling for power were reducing the National Assembly to ridicule. But the constitution of the Fourth Republic had vested power in the National Assembly rather than in the president and the executive. De Gaulle had to wait in the wings for eleven years.
