This article has been translated from the article Article 49 of the French Constitution in the French Wikipedia, and requires proofreading. If you are confident enough in your fluency of English and French, please proofread it.(April 2023)
The Constitution of the Fifth Republic of France (1958)
Article 49 of the French Constitution is an article of the French Constitution, the fundamental law of the Fifth French Republic.[1][2] It sets out and structures the political responsibility of the government (the executive branch) towards the parliament (legislative branch). It is part of Title V: "On relations between the parliament and the government" (Articles 34 through 51),[3] and with the intention of maintaining the stability of the French executive the section provides legislative alternatives to the parliament. It was written into the constitution to counter the perceived weakness[4] of the Fourth Republic, such as "deadlock"[5] and successive rapid government takeovers, by giving the government the ability to pass bills without the approbation of the parliament, possible under Section 3 of Article 49.[6]
The article, which comprises four paragraphs, was designed to prevent crises like those that occurred under the Fourth Republic.[a] Its best-known provision, paragraph 3 (Article 49.3), allows the government to force passage of a law without a vote, unless the parliament passes a motion of no confidence.[7] A motion of no confidence rarely passes, since it also entails the dissolution of the legislature pending new elections. Article 49 paragraph 3 provides for:[8]
an engagement de responsabilité (commitment of responsibility) of the administration to a certain program or declaration of policy, initiated by the executive branch. This measure should not be confused with the "question of confidence", which no longer exists under the French Fifth Republic.
a motion de censure or vote of no confidence, initiated by the Assemblée Nationale (National Assembly).
administration option to force passage of a legislative text without a vote through an engagement de responsabilité, unless the National Assembly is prepared to overturn it with a motion de censure.
an administration option to request approval of its policy by the French Senate, although the refusal of this approval would have consequences in the judicial branch
Article 49 paragraph 2 outlines a censure spontanée (spontaneous motion of no confidence), as opposed to the following paragraph 49.3, which outlines a motion of no confidence in some way "provoked" by the executive branch. Such a motion requires an absolute majority of members to vote for its adoption, and thus this provision changes the burden of proof and forces the Assembléé Nationale to reject the entire administration. The government cannot be overturned by counting the votes of undecided Assembly members who would simply abstain. This paragraph of Article 49 has only come into play once, in 1962 against Georges Pompidou, who then had to resign, but returned to power with newfound support after winning a decisive majority in the ensuing legislative elections.
Articles 50,[9] 50.1[10] and 51[11] relate directly to Article 49, since Article 50 complements 49.2, Article 51 provides technical detail about the implementation of Article 49.3, and 50.1 gives the executive an option for a declaration with an ensuing debate.
^Constitution française du 4 octobre 1958: texte intégral en vigueur. (2016). Publisher: France: Les Éditions des journaux officiels
^Pickles, Dorothy (1959). "The Constitution of the Fifth French Republic". The Modern Law Review. 22 (1): 1–20. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2230.1959.tb00505.x. JSTOR 1091737. S2CID 143798210.
^République française; Secrétariat général du gouvernement (19 October 2022). "Légifrance Le service public de la diffusion du droit" [The public service for dissemination of the law]. Légifrance. Direction de l'information légale et administrative. Constitution, Part V, Article 49. ISSN 2270-8987. OCLC 867599055.
^The French Constitution of 1958: I. The Final Text and Its Prospects, Stanley H. Hoffmann,
The American Political Science Review Vol. 53, No. 2 (Jun., 1959), pp. 332-357 (26 pages)
Published By: American Political Science Association
https://doi.org/10.2307/1952151
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1952151 p.332
^France's article 49.3 a handy constitutional tool to bypass parliament, Alison Hird, RFE/RL, October 13, 2022
^La réforme des retraites a été adoptée en France dans un climat délétère, Lucie Peytermann, Agence France-Presse, Le Devoir, 20 March 2023
^Toppling the government, early elections: Understanding the threats brandished by Macron and the opposition:President Macron is threatening to dissolve France's lower chamber of Parliament if it were to vote a motion of no confidence in the government, Romain Imbach, Le Monde, October 5, 2022
^<Constitution of October 4, 1958, published by the French National Assembly
^Legifrance, art. 50.
^Legifrance, art. 50.1.
^Legifrance, art. 51.
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