How Many Presidents Has France Had?
It depends which France you mean. The modern Fifth Republic, founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958, has had 8 presidents — Emmanuel Macron is the eighth. But counting every French republic back to 1848, Macron is the 25th president overall. France has torn up and rewritten its system five times; the presidency means something different in each.
Five republics, five different presidencies
France is on its fifth attempt at a republic, and the job of president has been reinvented each time. The Second Republic (1848) created a directly elected president — and watched its first one, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, seize power in a coup and crown himself emperor. The Third and Fourth Republics swung the other way, making the president a weak figurehead chosen by parliament.
The Fifth Republic, born of the 1958 Algiers crisis, settled the argument in favour of a strong president. Charles de Gaulle came out of retirement, rewrote the constitution, and built an office with real executive power — direct election from 1962, command of the armed forces, and the right to dissolve parliament. That is why "how many presidents?" splits in two: 8 in the current system, 25 across all of them.
The forgotten ninth man
Almost every list says the Fifth Republic has had eight presidents. Almost every list quietly drops Alain Poher. As president of the Senate, Poher twice became acting head of state — in 1969 when de Gaulle resigned, and again in 1974 when Pompidou died in office — running the country until a new president could be elected.
He was never elected to the role himself, which is why he is left out of the count of eight. But he did hold the powers of the presidency, briefly, on two separate occasions — a neat illustration of how counting "presidents" depends entirely on whether you mean elected ones or everyone who has sat in the chair.
The full list, in order
The eight elected presidents since 1958, in order — plus Alain Poher, who twice filled in as acting head of state but was never elected and is not counted among the eight.
Long reigns and hard falls
The Fifth Republic has produced some of Europe\u2019s longest tenures. François Mitterrand governed for 14 years across two seven-year terms; de Gaulle, Giscard, Chirac and Macron all left deep marks. The seven-year term was cut to five only in 2000, and a two-term limit added in 2008 — which is why Macron, re-elected in 2022, cannot run again in 2027.
The office has also brought hard landings. Two of the eight — Chirac and Sarkozy — were later convicted in the courts after leaving power, something the constitution\u2019s designers never anticipated. Pompidou died in office; de Gaulle resigned the moment voters rejected one of his referendums. The presidency is powerful, but it has rarely been gentle to the people who hold it.
How much power is in the job?
On paper and in practice, the French president is the strong man of European democracy — directly elected, immovable by parliament, and able to dissolve the Assembly. The one real brake is "cohabitation".
Think you know them? Prove it
A quick quiz. The counting questions catch most people.
- Britannica — List of presidents of France (all republics) and the Fifth Republic
- Élysée / Constitution of the Fifth French Republic (1958); the 2000 referendum on the five-year term
- Britannica — Emmanuel Macron, 8th president of the Fifth Republic
- Wikipedia — President of France and List of presidents of France
- Natural Earth public-domain country data (via world-atlas), used on the Leaders of the World map
Eight presidents, or twenty-five, or eight-and-a-half if you remember Alain Poher — in a country that has rewritten its republic five times, even counting the leaders is a political act.