Why France - Fifth Republic: the history of the name

In history, it is not new, when a country, as a person, except for a name, an official name, has another, unofficial. Let the name of Canada - "Maple Leaf Country" - can be explained by the features of the composition of deciduous forests of the North American continent, but other examples are not so obvious. For example, why France is the Fifth Republic, or, say, China itself its inhabitants call the Middle Kingdom? Roots - in history.

Examples in History

Here is the closest example. At the beginning of the first millennium from the Nativity of Christ, ancient Rome became the haven and stronghold of the first Christians. Then, defeated by a mob of barbarians, lost this status, and the unofficial capital of the Christian world became Constantinople. And in the 15th century, this "city of cities", or Second Rome, fell, becoming part of the Ottoman Empire and a pillar of a crescent moon, not a cross.

And at this time our father John IV, nicknamed the descendants of the "Terrible", Vasily III, was in dire need of an additional factor of the unification of the country and the people - after the fall of the Mongol-Tatar yoke the Rus was turning from a feudal state to a single-power powerful country. Taking advantage of the current situation (Unia, which united Eastern and Western Christian churches was signed), Basil III laid the title of Third Rome on the capital.

Let's try to answer the question, why France is called the Fifth Republic. The history of this country is inextricably linked with this word "republic", and the events in France largely determined the course of events on the European continent.

In fact, the answer to the question why France is called the Fifth Republic is quite simple - the country had five editions of the constitution. And it so happened that according to the number of the editorial office of the main document of the country it is customary to "number" the republic.

First French Republic

The very beginning of the republican history of France can certainly be considered a great French revolution, marked by the taking of the enraged inhabitants of the country by a stronghold and a symbol of royal power, the famous Bastille in 1789. Asked why France - the Fifth Republic now, then turned out to be in a state of revolution and civil war, most historians answer almost according to K. Marx.

To the collapse brought a catastrophic gap in the standard of living and civil rights of the ruling circles and the common people. Another factor was the presence in the country of a developed middle class, which had something to lose and who was ready to defend their rights and freedoms.

Further, as we know, was followed by the detention and shameful return to Paris of the attempted escape of King Louis XVI, the execution of the entire royal family and the proclamation of the Republic, the first French republic.

From Robespierre to the post-Napoleonic restoration

It should be noted that the First Republic did not last long - until 1804, until France became an empire led by Napoleon.

Then the events came down as from a cornucopia :

• The seizure of power by Bonaparte;
• The formation of the French Empire ;
• The defeat of the so-called great army in the vastness of Russia;
• A series of succeeding restorations of royal power and new revolutions.

Why France, the Fifth Republic, as it is now called, has experienced so many revolutions and returns to the monarchy in its history? Probably, because it was, by and large, the first country in the world to make the transition from the absolute power of one person to more progressive forms of government.

And from 1848 to 1852 there was a Second Republic with its version of the constitution, the end of which was another restoration. The descendant of the Bourbons sat down on the throne, and France again became an empire.

Germany was to blame for the creation and collapse of the Third Republic

The history of the Third Republic lasts from the overthrow of the last French monarch in 1870 to the occupation in 1940 by France of Hitler's troops. The prerequisites for changing the constitutional system were standard - the severance of power from the real state of affairs in the country.

The days of the last Emperor of France were counted after the shameful end of the Franco-German War of 1870, when Napoleon III managed to surrender to Prussian commanders along with his entire army. As soon as the news came to Paris, almost one night a decision was taken to abolish royalty and establish the Third Republic.

So, with the monarchy in France it was finished, but then why France is the 5th Republic, and not the Third?

The post-war world order

At the end of the Second World War in 1946, the country, like many others, was actively engaged in internal construction. Obviously, much has changed in the world. The canons, according to which the peoples lived before, did not meet the challenges and requirements of the present.

In 1946 a referendum was held in France, according to which the state became a parliamentary one. That is why France The Fifth Republic is still a state in which the post of prime minister has a weight comparable to that of the president.

"We went over" with democracy

The fourth French Republic safely survived until 1958, when an event occurred that showed that excessively liberal power was good for the time being.

What happened? I must say that France, democratic from within, nevertheless remained a colonial power right up until the 1980s. In 1958, in one of its colonies - Algeria - an uprising flared up. The event was in general ordinary, but the consequences were riotous - the troops sent to suppress the uprising refused to obey the government and, on the contrary, themselves tried to put forward conditions and demands for power.

The founder of the new constitution was a man who managed to suppress the crisis that was brewing in the country and bring order to the country - the political giant Charles de Gaulle, beloved by many French people. That's why France is the Fifth Republic. The peculiarities of the new constitution are the strengthening of the role of the president with the preservation of the decisive word of parliament and the priority of fundamental democratic freedoms.