vice President of France

The vice presidency was established at the start of the Second Republic by the Constitution of 4 November 1848, specifically its articles 45, 70 and 71.{{cite wikisource|author=French Republic|title=Constitution of 4 November 1848|wslink=French Constitution of 1848|at=art. 45, 70, 71}} It was broadly inspired by the vice president of the United States, as were some other features of the new constitution, which created France’s closest experiment towards a presidential system, with the introduction of a president, an office the First Republic had done without.{{cite book|chapter=La voie américaine|chapter-url=https://books.openedition.org/editionscnrs/16622?lang=fr|language=fr|first=Pierre-Xavier|last=Boyer|title=Angleterre et Amérique dans l'histoire constitutionnelle française (1789–1958)|publisher=CNRS Éditions|location=Paris|date=2012|doi=10.4000/books.editionscnrs.16622|isbn=978-2-271-12988-8|via=OpenEdition Books}}

The holder, however, was not elected alongside the president on a ticket, but in an indirect election by the National Assembly (legislature) within the month after the presidential election (a direct election), from a list of three names proposed by the new president. In order to avoid dynastic links after the toppling of the July Monarchy, members of the president’s family (“relations or kindred of the President to the sixth degree inclusive”) were barred from the office.{{rp|at=70}} Like the president, the vice president could only be re-elected, or be elected as president himself, after an interval of four years.{{rp|at=45}}

Also, the vice president was to step in as acting president if the president was incapacitated, but not to ascend the office if it became vacant: a new president was to be elected within a month.{{rp|at=70}}

The vice president was ex officio the president of the Council of State,{{rp|at=71}} a position that has always been occupied by a member of the executive (today the prime minister).

Henri Georges Boulay de la Meurthe was elected to the new office on 20 January 1849, as the preferred choice of President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had also proposed Count Achille Baraguey d’Hilliers and Alexandre-François Vivien. He was a devoted and discreet supporter of Bonaparte for the next three years; one biographer wrote that he was “always withdrawing, meddling in nothing, not even in his prerogatives”. He supported his Coup of 2 December 1851; although he formally remained Vice President, the Constitution of 1848 was in effect suspended until the Constitution of 1852 came into force on 29 March and abolished the office. He was compensated with a lifetime seat in the re-established Senate.{{cite book|editor-last1=Robert|editor-first1=Adolphe|editor-last2=Cougny|editor-first2=Gaston|chapter=Boulay (de la Meurthe) (Henri-Georges, comte)|title=Dictionnaire des parlementaires français depuis le 1er mai 1789 jusqu'au 1er mai 1889|location=Paris|publisher=Edgar Bourloton|volume=1: A-Cay|date=1889|language=fr|pages=426–427|chapter-url=https://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/sycomore/fiche/%28num_dept%29/9883|via=National Assembly}}

The order was the one in which President Bonaparte had presented his three candidates, in a letter of 18 January. The election was held on 20 January. Although the Constitution did not specify a voting system, the president of the Assembly stated that the election required a majority of the votes cast; it was achieved in one round. Boulay de la Meurthe was immediately sworn in.Record of the National Assembly session: {{cite book|chapter=Nomination du vice-président de la République|department=Assemblée nationale — séance du samedi 20 janvier|type=Legislative transcript|title=Compte rendu des séances de l'Assemblée nationale. Exposés des motifs et projets de loi présentés par le Gouvernement — Rapports de MM. les représentants|location=Paris|publisher=Typographie Panckoucke|volume=7: Du 1er janvier au 10 février 1849|date=1849|pages=335–336|language=fr|chapter-url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k31546h/f340.item|via=Gallica}}

During the Second Empire (1852–1870), two influential figures, the Duke of Morny,{{cite book|first=Michel|last=Carmona|title=Morny. Le vice-empereur|language=fr|place=Paris|publisher=Fayard|date=2005}} an illegitimate half-brother of Napoleon III, and Eugène Rouher,{{cite book|first=Erik|last=Egnell|title=Son Excellence Eugène Rouher (1814-1884). L’Auvergnat aux valeurs de droite, vice-empereur de Napoléon III|language=fr|place=Bergerac|publisher=Cyrano|date=2022}} were nicknamed “the Vice Emperor”.

The interim of the presidency in case of an incapacitation or a vacancy was devolved to the Council of Ministers (government) during the Third Republic (1875–1940), to the president of the National Assembly (lower house) during the Fourth Republic (1946–1958), and to the president of the Senate (upper house) under the Fifth Republic (1958–present).

In the 1960s, after the founding years of the Fifth Republic, there were proposals within the right-wing majority to create a vice presidency, some linked to the perspective of turning it into a presidential system. One was put forward privately by Jacques Chaban-Delmas, the president of the National Assembly, to President Charles de Gaulle after he escaped the Petit-Clamart attack in 1962,{{cite book|last=Chaban-Delmas|first=Jacques|author-link=Jacques Chaban-Delmas|title=L'Ardeur|at=chapter 22|language=fr|location=Paris|publisher=Stock|date=1975|isbn=2-234-00367-9}} and there were discussions at the 3rd UNR Conference in November 1963, which, by coincidence, was held in the days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.{{cite news|url=https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1963/11/30/la-transformation-du-senat-fait-toujours-l-objet-de-controverses-le-general-de-gaulle-hostile-a-la-creation-d-une-vice-presidence-de-la-republique_3093309_1819218.html|language=fr|work=Le Monde|issn=0395-2037|location=Paris|title=La transformation du Sénat fait toujours l'objet de controverses — Le général de Gaulle hostile à la création d'une vice-présidence de la République|last=Viansson-Ponté|first=Pierre|date=30 November 1963}} Others were made by Pierre Marcilhacy in 1964{{cite journal|title=Pierre Marcilhacy, « le candidat qui dit oui aux chrysanthèmes »|url=https://journals.openedition.org/histoirepolitique/1094|last=Dubasque|first=François|journal=Histoire@Politique|publisher=Sciences Po|location=Paris|volume=44|date=2021|language=fr|doi=10.4000/histoirepolitique.1094|issn=1954-3670|at=§17|doi-access=free}} p. 21. and by Paul Coste-Floret{{cite journal|url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/rfsp_0035-2950_1966_num_16_6_392976|via=Persée|last=Latscha|first=Jacques|title=Une réforme constitutionnelle nécessaire. Note sur les lacunes du régime d'élection à la présidence de la République|journal=Revue française de science politique|publisher=Sciences Po|location=Paris|issn=0035-2950|date=December 1966|volume=16|issue=6 |pages=1100–1115|language=fr|doi=10.3406/rfsp.1966.392976}} pp. 1113–1114. and Achille Peretti in 1966.

{{cite journal|url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/rfsp_0035-2950_1984_num_34_4_394151|via=Persée|language=fr|first=Daniel-Charles|last=Badache|journal=Revue française de science politique|title=Les positions institutionnelles des gaullistes depuis 1959|publisher=Sciences Po|location=Paris|issn=0035-2950|date=August–October 1984|volume=34|issue=4–5 |pages=844–860|doi=10.3406/rfsp.1984.394151}} pp. 851–853. De Gaulle and his entourage, however, saw this as a manoeuvre to ease his retirement, and the proposals came to nothing; he said of a potential vice president: “He would be my widow.”As quoted by Jean Foyer in an interview with {{cite journal|url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/rfsp_0035-2950_1984_num_34_4_394142|via=Persée|doi=10.3406/rfsp.1984.394142|title=Le général de Gaulle et l'élection directe du président de la République|first=Odile|last=Rudelle|author-link=Odile Rudelle|journal=Revue française de science politique|date=August–October 1984|volume=34|issue=4–5 |pages=687–711|language=fr|publisher=Sciences Po|location=Paris|issn=0035-2950}} p. 701.

Influential personalities in the executive branch with a close personal connection to the president, or a strong enough position to bypass the prime minister, have sometimes been referred to as “Vice President”,{{cite news|last=Verner|first=Robin|title=Vice-président de la République, le poste qui n'existe pas en France mais dont on parle quand même|work=Slate.fr|location=Paris|issn=2110-5553|date=8 May 2015|language=fr|url=http://www.slate.fr/story/101355/vice-president-france}} for example Claude Guéant, who was secretary general of the Presidency, then minister of the interior under Nicolas Sarkozy, and previously his chief of staff and presidential campaign manager;{{cite magazine|title=Claude Guéant : le vice-président|magazine=Le Monde Magazine|issue=29|issn=2105-1275|date=3 April 2010|language=fr}} and Ségolène Royal, as minister for sustainable development under François Hollande, the two being a former couple of three decades and the parents of four children.{{cite magazine|title=La vice-présidente|magazine=L'Obs|issue=2635|issn=2416-8793|date=6 May 2015|language=fr}}

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France

Category:French Second Republic

Category:Legal history of France

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Category:1848 establishments in France

Category:1852 disestablishments in France

Category:Defunct government positions