ABSTRACT
The history of the responsibility of the executive power in France seems to owe much to an approach the main lines of which were set by the constitutional doctrine of the Third Republic, which relied on the theoretical and liberal legacy elaborated under the July Monarchy. This approach focuses on the political responsibility of ministers. The history of executive responsibility therefore becomes often confused with that of the ministers. Apart from the fact that it tends to leave aside the other forms of responsibility, one of the drawbacks of that presentation is that it has a tendency to underestimate the historical importance of the French Revolution as an inaugural moment in the emergence of the principle of the responsibility of the Executive. Another disadvantage of this traditional approach is that it leads to hide another fundamental issue that was also raised as early as the Revolution – that of the link between Executive responsibility and republican form of government.
