II. The Initial Draft and its Origins

Like any important institutional change, the new French constitution owes its parentage to an established doctrinal tradition, the particular ideas and experiences of its authors, and the combination of immediate political circumstances. The complexity of this process in the summer of 1958 and the failure of the French government to publish the records of the drafting, make it difficult even a year later to describe the birth of the document. Yet the fact that the drafting closely followed a short though dangerous crise du régime, and that it was primarily the work of the new Ministry rather than a constituent assembly, presents a meager advantage to the student of the new constitution. For the haste with which General de Gaulle's government prepared the initial draft—while at the same time preoccupied with many other pressing matters— strongly suggests that the drafters simply cast into legal text the program of the familiar opposition movement, formed by the General over a decade before, specifically to accomplish constitutional reform.