ABSTRACT
The presidency is the corner-stone of the French state, the ‘clé de voûte’ of the régime, to borrow the expression first used by Michel Debré in presenting the constitution of the Fifth Republic to the Conseil d’Etat. It is also in many ways quite unique to France. This unique nature was amply illustrated in the 1995 presidential election campaign. The major event in the preliminary stages of the campaign was the announcement by Jacques Delors that he would not be standing, despite his substantial lead in the polls over all other major candidates. He gave as his main reason the fact that he would be unable to implement his political programme in the event of his election:
the absence of a majority to support such a policy, whatever measures might be taken after the election, would not allow me to put my solutions into effect…. I would not wish, once elected, to cohabit with a government that did not share my options.
