List of Presidents France,Presidents of the Council of Ministers of France,Presidents of the France, France Presidents,List Of President In France.President List Of France,France Presidents,President list France.
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| Photo |
NAME |
Starting Year |
Ending Year |
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François Hollande |
15-May-12 |
Incumbent |
| Served as the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party 1997–2008, as a Deputy of the National Assembly for Corrèze's 1st Constituency 1988–1993, 1997. He was the Mayor of Tulle 2001–2008, and was the President of the Corrèze General Council 2008–2012. The second left-wing President of the Fifth Republic. Elected in the 2012 election, defeating Nicolas Sarkozy. |
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Nicolas Sarkozy |
5/16/2007 |
15 May 2012 |
| Held various ministerial posts 1993–1995 and 2002–2007. Leader of the UMP since 2004. In the 2007 election, he topped the first round poll, and was elected in the second round against Ségolène Royal. Soon after taking office, he introduced the French fiscal package of 2007 and other laws to counter illegal immigration and recidivism. President of the Council of the EU in 2008, he defended the Treaty of Lisbon and mediated in the South Ossetia War; at national level, he had to deal with the financial crisis and its consequences. Following the 2008 constitutional reform, he became the first President since Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte to address the Versailles Congress on 22 June 2009. President of the G8 and the G20 in 2011. Defeated in the 2012 election. |
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Jacques Chirac |
5/17/1995 |
5/16/2007 |
| Prime Minister 1974–1976; on resignation, founded the RPR. Eliminated in the first round of the 1981 election, he again served as Prime Minister 1986–1988. Beaten in the 1988 election, he was elected in the 1995 election. He engaged in social reforms to counter "social fracture". In 1997, he dissolved the Assemblée nationale; a left-wing victory in the 1997 legislative elections, forced him to name Lionel Jospin Prime Minister for a five-year cohabitation. Presidential terms reduced from seven to five years. In 2002, he was re-elected against the leader of the extreme right-wing Jean-Marie Le Pen. Opposed the Iraq War. He did not run in 2007, he retired from political life and returned to the Conseil constitutionnel. |
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Francois Mitterrand |
5/21/1981 |
5/17/1995 |
| Candidate of a united left-wing ticket in the 1965 election, he founded the Socialist Party in 1971. Having narrowly lost the 1974 election, he was finally elected in the 1981 election. He instigated several reforms (abolition of the death penalty, a fifth week of paid leave for employees). After the right-wing victory in the 1986 legislative elections, he named Jacques Chirac Prime Minister, thus beginning the first cohabitation. Re-elected in the 1988 election against Chirac, he was again forced to cohabit with Édouard Balladur following the 1993 legislative elections. He retired in 1995 after the conclusion of his second term. He was the first President elected twice by universal suffrage, he was the first left-wing President of the Fifth Republic, and his Presidential tenure was the longest of the Fifth Republic. |
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Valery Giscard dEstaing |
5/27/1974 |
5/21/1981 |
| Founder of the FNRI and later the UDF in his efforts to unify the centre-right, he served in several Gaullist governments. Narrowly elected in the 1974 election, he instigated numerous reforms, including the lowering of the age of civil majority from 21 to 18, and the legalisation of abortion. He soon faced a global economic crisis and rising unemployment. Although the polls initially gave him a lead, he was defeated in the 1981 election by François Mitterrand, partly due to the disunion within the right wing. |
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Georges Pompidou |
6/20/1969 |
4/2/1974 |
| Prime Minister under Charles de Gaulle 1962–1968. Elected President in the 1969 election against the centrist Alain Poher. Favoured European integration. Supported economic modernisation and industrialisation. Faced the 1973 oil crisis. †Died in office of Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, two years before the end of his mandate. |
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Charles de Gaulle |
1/8/1959 |
4/28/1969 |
| President of the Provisional Government 1944–1946. Appointed President of the Council by René Coty in May 1958, to resolve the crisis of the Algerian War. He adopted a new Constitution, thus founding the Fifth Republic. Easily elected President in the 1958 election by electoral college, he took office the following month; he was re-elected by universal suffrage in the 1965 election. In 1966, he withdrew France from NATO integrated military command, and expelled the American bases on French soil. Having refused to step down during the crisis of May 1968, he finally resigned following the failure of the 1969 referendum on regionalisation. |
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Rene Coty |
1/16/1954 |
1/8/1959 |
| Presidency marked by the Algerian War; appealed to Charles de Gaulle to resolve the May 1958 crisis. Following the promulgation of the Fifth Republic, he resigned after five years as President, giving way to de Gaulle. |
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Vincent Auriol |
1/16/1947 |
1/16/1954 |
| First President of the Fourth Republic, his term was marked by the First Indochina War. |
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Albert Lebrun |
5/10/1932 |
7/11/1947 |
| Re-elected in 1939, his second term was interrupted de facto by the rise to power of Marshal Philippe Pétain. |
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Paul Doumer |
6/13/1931 |
5/7/1932 |
| Elected in the second round of the 1931 election, having displaced the pacifist Aristide Briand. †Assassinated (shot) by the mentally unstable Paul Gorguloff. |
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Gaston Doumergue |
6/13/1924 |
6/13/1931 |
| The first Protestant President, he took a firm political stance against Germany and its resurgent nationalism. His seven-year term was marked by ministerial discontinuity. |
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Alexandre Millerand |
9/23/1920 |
6/11/1924 |
| An "Independent Socialist" increasingly drawn to the right wing, he resigned after four years following the victory of the Cartel des Gauches in the 1924 legislative elections. |
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Paul Deschanel |
2/18/1920 |
9/21/1920 |
| An intellectual elected to the Académie française, he overcame the popular Georges Clemenceau, to general surprise, in the January 1920 election. He resigned after eight months due to mental health problems.Clemenceau, to general surprise, in the January 1920 election. He resigned after eight months due to mental health problems. |
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Raymond Poincare |
2/18/1913 |
2/18/1920 |
| President during World War I. He subsequently served as President of the Council 1922–1924 and 1926–1929.1922–1924 and 1926–1929 |
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Armand Fallieres |
2/18/1906 |
2/18/1913 |
| President during the Agadir Crisis, when French troops first occupied Morocco. He was a party to the Triple Entente, which he strengthened by diplomacy. Like his predecessor, he did not seek re-election.Clemenceau, to general surprise, in the January 1920 election. He resigned after eight months due to mental health problems. |
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Emile Loubet |
1899-02-18 |
2/18/1906 |
| During his seven-year term, the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State was adopted, and only four Presidents of the Council succeeded to the Hôtel Matignon. He did not seek re-election at the end of his term.1922–1924 and 1926–1929. |
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Felix Faure |
1895-01-17 |
1899-02-16 |
| Pursued colonial expansion and ties with Russia. President during the Dreyfus Affair. †Four years into his term he died of apoplexy at the Élysée Palace, allegedly in flagrante.party to the Triple Entente, which he strengthened by diplomacy. Like his predecessor, he did not seek re-election. |
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Jean Casimir Perier |
1894-06-27 |
1895-01-16 |
| Perier's was the shortest Presidential term: he resigned after six months and 20 days. |
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Marie Francois Sadi Carnot |
1887-12-03 |
1894-06-25 |
| His term was marked by boulangist unrest and the Panama scandals, and by diplomacy with Russia. †Assassinated (stabbed) by Sante Geronimo Caserio a few months before the end of his mandate, he is interred at the Panthéon, Paris. |
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Jules Grevy |
1879-01-30 |
1887-12-02 |
| The first President to complete a full term, he was easily re-elected in December 1885. He was nonetheless forced to resign, following an honours scandal in which his son-in-law was implicated. |
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Patrice de Mac Mahon |
1873-05-24 |
1879-01-30 |
| A Marshal of France, he was the only monarchist (and only Duke) to serve as President of the Third Republic. He resigned shortly after the Republican victory in the 1877 legislative elections, following his decision to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. During his term, the French Constitutional Laws of 1875 that served as the Constitution of the Third Republic were passed, and he therefore became the first President under the constitutional settlement that would last until 1940. |
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Adolphe Thiers |
1871-08-31 |
1873-05-24 |
| Initially a moderate monarchist, named President following the adoption of the Rivet law. He became a Republican during his term, and resigned in the face of hostility from the Assemblée nationale, largely in favour of a return to monarchy. |
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Louis Napoleon Bonaparte |
1848-12-20 |
1871-12-02 |
| Nephew of Napoléon I. Elected first President of the French Republic, in the 1848 election against Louis-Eugène Cavaignac. He provoked the French coup of 1851, and proclaimed himself Emperor the following year. (2 December 1852 -4 September 1870) |
