In France, the President of the Council, officially President of the Council of Ministers, was the head of government under several political regimes of the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the establishment of the Fifth Republic, the role of head of government has been fulfilled by the Prime Minister (Article 21 of the Constitution of 4 October 1958).
History
This title was first held by Talleyrand in 1815 during the Restoration. Constitutionally, it is the King who presides over the Council of Ministers: the minister "President of the Council" replaces him when necessary. In practice, he already played a leading role, as Louis XVIII declared in a letter to Decazes in 1821:
It is not the King who is the keystone. It is the President of the Council.
The record for longevity in this position (9 years, 3 months, and 17 days – of which 6 years, 10 months, and 20 days were continuous) is held by Jean-de-Dieu Soult, who headed the government three times under the July Monarchy.
The first President of the Council of the Third Republic was Jules Dufaure in 1876. From 1871 to 1876, the head of government held the title of Vice-President of the Council, with the Council presided over by the President of the Republic (Adolphe Thiers, then Marshal Mac Mahon). The legislative elections of 1876 led to a political crisis between the government and the President of the Republic. The position of President of the Council was then created. It was not official, as the constitutional laws of the Third Republic granted all executive power to the President of the Republic. Curiously, it was the latter who continued to preside over the Council of Ministers held at the Élysée Palace, while another government member held the title of "President of the Council of Ministers" and guided the discussions. Until 1934, the President of the Council had to combine government leadership with another ministerial portfolio, as, being the "unofficial" head of government, he had neither offices nor staff. The President of the Council presented to the President of the Republic a list of ministers from parties that formed a coalition for the occasion (the program was rather brief). This coalition remained fragile, vulnerable to the defection of one of its components over a specific aspect of government policy. The ministry then appeared before the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, which voted to grant it confidence. The Constitution of 1946 formalized the creation of a President of the Council vested with executive power but still specified that "the President of the Republic presides over the Council of Ministers." The Constitution of 1958 clearly expressed the primacy of the President of the Republic by assigning the title of Prime Minister to the head of government and reserving the presidency of the Council of Ministers to the President of the Republic.
Under the Vichy regime, the head of government was called Vice-President of the Council and later simply Head of Government, with the presidency of the Council of Ministers held by the head of state.
The title of Vice-President of the Council was again given from 1926 to 1958 to certain prominent ministers.