The French Center for Research on Contemporary China, Taipei Office,
in collaboration with the
Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences (RCHSS),
Academia Sinica,
and with the support of the
French Institute in Taipei (IFT),

have the pleasure to invite you to attend the following lecture:

"The French Cohabitation, a useful experiment?"
(in English)

by Prof. Marie-Anne Cohendet,
Professor of Constitutional Law,
University Paris I - Pantheon-Sorbonne

on Thursday December 15, 2005, 2:30 PM

Venue: Conference Room 1, 1st Floor, RCHSS Building,
Academia Sinica, Taipei

The lecture is open to all.
Please find the abstract below.

Contact: cefc@gate.sinica.edu.tw - Tel : (02) 2789 0873 -

www.cefc.com.hk/taipei
　

Abstract:
The three French experiments of “cohabitation” between a President of the Republic and a parliamentary majority which is politically opposed to him have provided us with many lessons. The constitutional regime of the 5th Republic is known as "semi-presidential" or "parliamentary bi-representative", because it is a parliamentary constitutional regime (the Government being responsible before the Parliament) in which the President is elected directly by the citizens (bi-representative). Apart from the periods of “cohabitation”, the French constitutional regime operates in practice under a presidential system (characterized by the preeminence of the President). During the periods of “cohabitation”, it operates under a parliamentary or governmental system (characterized by the preeminence of the Parliament or the Government). In each occurrence of “cohabitation”, the President was constrained to name a Government chosen by the parliamentary majority, under the threat of a no-confidence vote by the parliament and out of the memory of the "strike of the Prime Ministers" in 1924. French national policies were thus determined by the Government under the control of the Parliament, the President going back to his role of national arbiter as conferred by the Constitution. Far from challenging the constitutional regime, as some predicted, the “cohabitation” has induced a bigger respect for the Constitution and greater democratization of French politics, even if it also brought some inconveniences. The revisions of the constitution which have been adopted or are now proposed often are justified by those experiments.

Short Biography:
Professor of Public and Constitutional Law at the University of Paris I - Pantheon-Sorbonne.
Main fields of research: Constitutional Law, Comparative Law, Environmental Law.

Publications related to the topic of the seminar:
- Le Président de la République (The President of the Republic), Paris, Dalloz, 2002.
- Droit Constitutionnel (Constitutional Law), Paris, Montchrestien, 3rd ed., 1998.
- La Cohabitation, leçons d’une expérience, Paris, PUF, 1993.
----
Dr. Frank Muyard
Director, Taipei Office,
French Center for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC)
muyard@gate.sinica.edu.tw – frank.muyard@gmail.com

Room A315, Research Center For Humanities and Social Sciences (RCHSS)
Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan 11529, R.O.C.
Tel : (886-2) 2789-0873 - Fax : (886-2) 2789-0874
Mobile :(886) 0920-296-399
http://www.cefc.com.hk/taipei