De Gaulle – the Restorer of the Republic

Kazimierz Michał Ujazdowski
ISBN 978-83-88445-05-7, twarda oprawa, 364 strony, Sopot 2021

This book is about the origins and identity of the Fifth Re­public Constitution, in the version developed between 1958 and 1962.

Chapter I defines the hallmarks of the French re­publican tradition, presents its internal diversity, elaborates the doctrine of the Third Republic and the crisis of the political sys­tem built on its foundations.

Chapter II is devoted to the shaping of de Gaulle’s views under the influence of republican nationalism and recognition of the republic as a permanent form of the exist­ence of France. The role de Gaulle played in the reconstruction of republican order during World War II and after liberation is discussed there, too.

Chapter III includes an analysis of the concepts of the 1930s reformatory movement that inspired the founders of the Fifth Republic.

Chapter IV is devoted to the original political vi­sion offered by de Gaulle and the constitutional thought of Michel Debré and René Capitant, authors of the two systems shaping the Fifth Republic: rationalized parliamentarism and democratic republicanism. In this chapter, the author discusses the development of the Gaullian constitutional thought in the years 1947–1951 and devotes quite a lot of space to the criticism of the federal forms of European integra­tion and its constitutional ramifications.

In chapter V, the book describes the mode in which de Gaulle effectuated the political change in 1958 and elaborates on the fundamental tenets of the Fifth Repub­lic Constitution.

In the final chapter, the book offers an answer to the question about the Fifth Republic’s vitality and still-perpetuated identity and discusses relationships between the Polish constitutional tradition and de Gaulle’s political output. It underscores the universal values and ben­efits accruing from the studies on the origins and identity of the Fifth Republic Constitution.