Parliament's Capacity to Expand Political Controversy in France

This paper examines the policy role of the parliament in the French Fifth Republic. Under the constitutional strictures within which it operates, the parliament can affect the policy process principally by changing the venue of a debate from the realm of experts to that of politicians, forcing the issue onto the national agenda. In such a case, the parliament may force the government to scale down or abandon its plans, in spite of the government's greater constitutional strengths.