ABSTRACT
Charles De Gaulle's contempt for the political parties and the wranglings of the party leaderships is well known and the Fifth Republic was intended to introduce politics of a new sort - a complete break with the intermediaries and a direct line to the voters. As a political system, the Fifth Republic can only be understood through the currents represented, political party competition and the interplay of parties and of coalitions with the presidency. In other words, the Fifth Republic is, in its way, a 'régime des partis'. While it is true that the instability and the revolving door of government change which were to the discredit of the Fourth Republic were ended by de Gaulle, the history of the political power of the presidency is a history of the political parties. During the interval between the presidential elections of 1965 and the general elections of 1967 an intensively active campaign was conducted in the shadow of the Presidency.
