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French candidates want to beef up parliament

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PARIS, France -- France's National Assembly could get some more teeth if candidates in the presidential election get their way.

Socialist candidate Segolene Royal and centrist Francois Bayrou want to do away the Fifth Republic, the system of government brough in by former President Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

Conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has been less than enthusiastic about creating a Sixth Republic. However, he also favors giving parliament more power to counterbalance those of the president.

The current constitution gives the president the authority to appoint and dismiss governments.

The president -- who, just as in the United States, is elected directly by voters -- also can operate almost independently of parliament, renderting it ineffectual and poorly attended.

In fact, most assembly members have so little to do that they take other jobs in local or regional government.

"Absenteeism in the French parliament is a real problem," Olivier Rozenberg, a political scientist at the Sciences Po institute in Paris, told Reuters.

"It's really more to do with practice than with any written rule, but in my opinion it's one of the main reasons behind the weakness of parliament," he said.

A recent survey conducted by the daily newspaper Le Figaro showed about two- thirds of voters wanted the reform of political institutions to be a priority. Many called for changes to voting system and more checks on the president power.

All the leading candidates have sought to respond to a growing perception that the institutions have grown too remote.

"Based on what's been proposed, I can't really see what would justify the change of name. A change of republic comes after real historic shocks," Rozenberg said.

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