List of Prime Ministers of France

In France, the Prime Minister is the head of government. As such, he is in semi-presidential system of government of the Fifth Republic to the State President, who also exercises the functions of a government in certain areas.

Constitutional position

The Prime Minister is appointed by the President. The Office of the Prime Minister is incompatible with the exercise of parliamentary duties, or any other professional activity. The Prime Minister has no fixed term of office; it is recognized constitutional convention that after a new election of the National Assembly or the President, the Prime Minister offers to the President that the government resign. Otherwise, it is recallable only by a vote of no confidence of the National Assembly.

The Prime Minister shall propose to the President before the Minister on the appointment and directs Government. He is assigned by the Constitution, the responsibility for national defense, ensuring the execution of the laws and the fundamental right to adopt regulations. He divides central executive rights with the President, the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers leads and signed the Council of Ministers Regulations.

In contrast to the German Chancellor, the Prime Minister has no formal policy-making powers and he is not head of the Cabinet. As management tools within the government he has the organizational power of the Ministry of Education and occupation available as well as the possibility of establishing inter-ministerial committees. Also, it stands alone as a representative of the executive branch to the right of legislative initiative, he can ask the National Assembly vote of confidence and call the Constitutional Council with the aim of an abstract norm control.

This gives it an addition to the President potentially equivalent position in the direction of the executive. Whether it comes in the constitutional reality to bear, depends on the ratio of the President and the National Assembly. If the President of the National Assembly a political majority, he accepts de facto head of the executive and the free -appointed him prime minister to this challenge filed under. However, where the parliamentary majority for President in opposition, the constellation of a so-called cohabitation occurs: As the Prime Minister on the confidence of the National Assembly is dependent, the President is forced to the Leader of the Opposition to appoint as Prime Minister. In this case, the powers of the Prime Minister in the interaction can unfold with the him supporting parliamentary majority, as the President withdraws into a cohabitation on a moderator role in the executive branch as well as the Domaine reservé, so that the primary responsibility of the President for Foreign Affairs, Defence - and European policy is called.

List of incumbents

In the Third and Fourth Republic, which had a parliamentary system of government, the Prime Minister led the title Président du Conseil (President of the Council of Ministers, German mostly short translated as Prime Minister ).

Prime Minister of the Third Republic

(1871-1873) Adolphe Thiers
(1873-1874) Patrice de Mac -Mahon
(1874-1875) Ernest Courtot de Cissey
(1875-1876) Louis Joseph Buffet
(1876-1876) Jules Dufaure
(1876-1877) Jules Simon
(1877-1877) Albert de Broglie
(1877-1877) Gaëtan de Rochebouët
(1877-1879) Jules Dufaure
(1879-1879) William Henry Waddington
(1879-1880) Charles de Freycinet
(1881-1882) Jules Ferry
(1881-1882) Léon Gambetta
(1882-1882) Charles de Freycinet
(1882-1883) Charles Duclerc
(1883-1883) Armand Fallières
(1883-1885) Jules Ferry
(1885-1885) Henri Brisson
(1886-1886) Charles de Freycinet
(1886-1887) René Goblet
(1887-1887) Maurice Rouvier
(1887-1888) Pierre Tirard
(1888-1889) Charles Thomas Floquet
(1889-1890) Pierre Tirard
(1890-1892) Charles de Freycinet
(1892-1892) Émile Loubet
(1892-1893) Alexandre Ribot
(1893-1893) Charles Dupuy
(1893-1894) Jean Casimir - Perier
(1894-1895) Charles Dupuy
(1895-1895) Alexandre Ribot
(1895-1896) Victor Léon Bourgeois
(1896-1898) Félix Jules Méline
(1898-1898) Henri Brisson
(1898-1899) Charles Dupuy
(1899-1902) Pierre Waldeck -Rousseau
(1902-1905) Émile Combes
(1905-1906) Maurice Rouvier
(1906-1906) Ferdinand Sarrien
(1906-1909) Georges Clemenceau
(1909-1911) Aristide Briand
(1911-1911) Antoine Emmanuel Ernest Monis
(1911-1912) Joseph Caillaux
(1912-1913) Raymond Poincaré
(1913-1913) Aristide Briand
(1913-1913) Louis Barthou
(1913-1914) Gaston Doumergue
(1914-1915) René Viviani
(1915-1917) Aristide Briand
(1917-1917) Alexandre Ribot
(1917-1917) Paul Painlevé
(1917-1920) Georges Clemenceau
(1920-1920) Alexandre Millerand
(1920-1921) Georges Leygues
(1921-1922) Aristide Briand
(1922-1924) Raymond Poincaré
(1924-1924) Frédéric François- Marsal
(1924-1925) Édouard Herriot
(1925-1925) Paul Painlevé
(1925-1926) Aristide Briand
(1926-1926) Édouard Herriot
(1926-1929) Raymond Poincaré
(1929-1929) Aristide Briand
(1929-1930) André Tardieu
(1930-1930) Camille Chautemps
(1930-1930) André Tardieu
(1930-1931) Théodore Steeg
(1931-1932) Pierre Laval
(1932-1932) André Tardieu
(1932-1932) Édouard Herriot
(1932-1933) Joseph Paul Boncour
(1933-1933) Édouard Daladier
(1933-1933) Albert Sarraut
(1933-1934) Camille Chautemps
(1934-1934) Édouard Daladier
(1934-1934) Gaston Doumergue
(1934-1935) Pierre -Etienne Flandin
(1935-1935) Fernand Bouisson
(1935-1936) Pierre Laval
(1936-1936) Albert Sarraut
(1936-1937) Léon Blum
(1937-1938) Camille Chautemps
(1938-1938) Léon Blum
(1938-1940) Édouard Daladier
(1940-1940) Paul Reynaud
(1940-1940) Philippe Pétain

Vichy regime

(1940-1941) Pierre Laval
(1941-1942) François Darlan
(1942-1944) Pierre Laval

Provisional Government

(1944-1946) Charles de Gaulle
(1946-1946) Félix Gouin
(1946-1946) Georges Bidault
(1946-1947) Léon Blum

Prime Minister of the Fourth Republic

(1947-1947) Paul Ramadier
(1947-1948) Robert Schuman
(1948-1948) André Marie
(1948-1949) Henri Queuille
(1949-1950) Georges Bidault
(1950-1950) Henri Queuille
(1950-1951) René Pleven
(1951-1951) Henri Queuille
(1951-1952) René Pleven
(1952-1952) Edgar Faure
(1952-1953) Antoine Pinay
(1953-1953) René Mayer
(1953-1954) Joseph Laniel
(1954-1955) Pierre Mendès -France
(1955-1956) Edgar Faure
(1956-1957) Guy Mollet
(1957-1957) Maurice Bourgès - Maunoury
(1957-1958) Félix Gaillard
(1958-1958) Pierre Pflimlin
(1958-1959) Charles de Gaulle

Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic

Under President Charles de Gaulle ( conservative UNR )

(1959-1962) Michel Debré
(1962-1968) Georges Pompidou
(1968-1969) Maurice Couve de Murville

Under President Georges Pompidou ( conservative UNR-UDT/UDR )

(1969-1972) Jacques Chaban -Delmas
(1972-1974) Pierre Messmer

Under President Valéry Giscard d' Estaing ( liberal UDF)

(1974-1976), Jacques Chirac ( conservative RPR)
(1976-1981) Raymond Barre (independent)

Under President François Mitterrand (Socialist Party)

(1981-1984) Pierre Mauroy
(1984-1986) Laurent Fabius
(1986-1988), Jacques Chirac ( cohabitation )
(1988-1991) Michel Rocard
(1991-1992) Edith Cresson
(1992-1993) Pierre Bérégovoy
(1993-1995) Édouard Balladur ( cohabitation )

Under President Jacques Chirac ( conservative RPR / UMP)

(1995-1997) Alain Juppé
(1997-2002) Lionel Jospin ( cohabitation )
(2002-2005) Jean -Pierre Raffarin
(2005-2007) Dominique de Villepin

Under President Nicolas Sarkozy ( UMP conservative )

(2007-2012) François Fillon

Under President François Hollande (Socialist Party)

2012-2014 Jean- Marc Ayrault
Since April 1, 2014 Manuel Valls

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