Les institutions politiques françaises

Bernard Tricot's course at the Institut d'études politiques of Paris from 1976 to 1984, continued since 1984 by Raphaël Hadas-Lebel, succeeded the courses taught previously by Jacques Donnedieu de Vabres and by François Goguel. Their différences as well as a wide agreement of thought have brought together the two authors. The senior author, just 20 years older than the other, glimpsed the last reflections of the 1918 victory, felt the worry of his elders faced with the rising of dangers, and detested the governmental combinations and suspensions of the end of the Third Republic.
Both authors were familiars with the recurrent weaknesses which brought about the downfall of the Fourth Republic. The book's ambition is to present the main stages of the evolution of the French State, with its elements of permanence and of change ; to analyze the présent functioning of institutions through constitutional mechanisms as well as their relations to social and political forces, the tasks of the State administrative machinery and the influence of public power on society.
Both the student and the citizen can thus better judge the importance of an institutional System adapted to the conditions of our time, which provides an efficient and free System of government.