One could look at the historical and institutional experiences to see their political effect. 

            It had taken centuries of hard, often bloody work to create a unified “France.”  Memories of war and civil war, of resistance and rebellion remained strong.  So did regional and religious and class identities.  Most importantly, after 1789 France divided between the supporters of Freedom//the Republic/”Movement” and the supporters of Authority/Property/”Order.”  Both groups felt threatened by the other, so they presented all their own actions as a defense against the aggression of “Them.”[1]  So French politics was (and is) often about some other issue(s) than the formal one under discussion.  Any attempt to sort out an issue through discussion could go South quickly.  In the words of the sociologist Michel Crozier, the French developed a “horror of face-to-face discussion.”[2] Instead, they kicked things upstairs to authorities.  But they didn’t trust those authorities either.[3]   

For one thing, government seems impermanent.  There have been frequent changes of regime ever since the Revolution.[4]  The Republic, “One and Indivisible”; the Napoleonic Empire; the Bourbon Restoration Monarchy and the Orleanist July Monarchy[5]; the Second Republic; the Second Empire; the Third Republic; the Vichy Regime; the Fourth Republic[6]; and the Fifth Republic.  The United States has had one constitution over the same period. 

Then, depending on one’s political tribe, there was the hope or danger that a soldier would take power.  Napoleon I, General Patrice MacMahon (the first President of the Third Republic), General Georges Boulanger, and Field Marshall Philippe Petain were soldiers who had seized or tried to seize power from republican government.  Highly attuned to the problem of ambitious, autocratic soldiers, the centrist politicians of the Fourth Republic saw General Charles de Gaulle in this light.[7]   

No one could put much trust in a government might disappear. 

If the politicians were unreliable, the bureaucracy was not.  Napoleon I had created a powerful and centralized government machinery; it had only grown stronger with the passage of time.  The bureaucracy continued to exist whatever regime held power.  It could be abused by politicians, or be manipulated by representatives of interest groups.[8]  More prosaically, the face of the State in villages and towns were the dreaded tax collector and the recruiting sergeant. 

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[1] Philip Williams, Crisis and Compromise: Politics in the Fourth Republic (1958), p. 7.   

[2] See: Dreyfus dinner party: Caran-d-ache-dreyfus-supper – Dreyfus affair – Wikipedia  In panel one, the host says “No talking about the Dreyfus case.”  In panel two the caption says “They talked about it anyway.” 

[3] Williams, Crisis and Compromise, p. 5. 

[4] See: Peintures Soudee Advert J Sennep Vernis Soudee Villejuif Seine pc unused S811 | eBay UK  The ad says “Republics pass; Soudee paint lasts.”  The ads were in the Paris Metro stations.  I think that the company got a lot of flak because the Fourth Republic actually was tottering at that time. 

[5] Two branches of the same family fighting over whether the monarchy should be backward-looking or forward-looking. 

[6] The raffish, scandal-plagued Fourth Republic (1944-1958) resembled the “Directory” period of the late First Republic. 

[7] Williams, Crisis and Compromise, p. 8.

[8] Williams, Crisis and Compromise, pp. 1-2.