Georges Pompidou: Rooting the Fifth Republic

Olivier Sibre explains how the void left by de Gaulle’s departure was immediately filled by his former Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou, whose election proved that the Fifth Republic could survive after the departure of its founding father. Pompidou’s presidency, which stopped brutally upon his death in 1974, stayed in line with General de Gaulle’s, as he attempted to maintain some degree of neutrality at the height of the Cold War. With more liberal economic views, he unblocked the European construction by accepting the UK’s admission to the common market. He increasingly appeared as a rightist politician, opposing the left-wing union founded by the socialists and the communists in 1972. During his term, the first serious cracks appeared in the relations between the President and his first Prime Minister, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, launching a post-De Gaulle era of inter-institutional competition.