PARIS -- The French attach so much importance to their government institutions that they change them more often than any other people. They've had five republics and 16 constitutions in the past 200 or so years!

The constitution has remained the same, however, since 1958, when it was submitted to a referendum by Gen. Charles de Gaulle and approved by a wide margin. Since then it has undergone several minor amendments, which were mostly necessitated by the development of European unity. The greatest change, however, is that of cohabitation, which has taken place without any legal modifications to the constitution, and affects the daily functioning of the state.

De Gaulle's essential aim in creating the 1958 constitution was to give the French people the powerful leader that they so required. To escape the "reign of the parties" that de Gaulle so feared, it was initially written in the constitution that the president would be appointed by a college consisting of 75,000 "great electors" who would be drawn from virtually all elected bodies. However, the general didn't feel satisfied with that solution. In 1962, when several murder attempts against him underlined the need of giving his successor as much legitimacy as possible, he decided the better solution would be to elect the president by popular vote. In a subsequent referendum, the French people gave their overwhelming approval to de Gaulle's idea.