Politics in France

France is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic. So that means that there is a President that is head of state and a Prime Minister that is head of government. As in many countries the executive power is exercised by the government.

The duties of the President aren’t very different of the ones we have: heading the armed forces, appointment of the Prime Minister, power to dismiss the National Assembly, chairing the Council of Ministers, appointing the members of the highest appellate court etc. The official residence of the President is the Elysée Palace, which you can find in Paris of course. The palace is obviously heavily guarded and protected so no one can come in without permission! It’s actually a very impressing building, too bad we’re not allowed to go in there.  I think it would be super fascinating. Too give you an impression of how it looks like on the inside, I’ve looked up some pictures for you guys!

So as you can tell, the president has a lot of power. He serves for seven year terms, which is different from the most other western European countries, they only serve four year terms. Since France is a democratic republic, he is directly elected by the general voting population of France. 

The thing I found really weird is that the Prime Minister and the President do not always come from the same political party. Therefore there exists an agreement where the Prime Minister takes prime responsibility for domestic issues while the President serves as head of the state so on  international issues. But as I already illustrated, the president has a lot of power so he can always dismiss the Prime Minister if there are any problems.

I have to admit I’m not really into politics but it was very fascinating to find out some more about France like this. I mean, it’s so much easier to understand the culture and the population of France if you dig a little deeper into the politics. Thanks France! You gave me the desire to know more about politics in different countries.

Talk to you later bloggers!

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_France

http://www.rogerdarlington.me.uk/Frenchpoliticalsystem.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lys%C3%A9e_Palace

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/articles/france/Government-Politics-in-France/544