The name is absent

parliamentary tradition which militated against placid acceptance of gov-
ernment policy making, British style. Part of the problem was solved by
the ending of the Algerian War and by the replacement of the brusque
Debré with the more tactful Pompidou, who promised that the UNR group
had an important role to play in helping to formulate Iegislation?⁸³ In the
second Assembly, from 1962 to 1967, the government gave more attention
to majority deputies, especially when they presented their amendments be-
hind the scenes, as in parliamentary committees or party subject groups,
or through the parliamentary party’s “bureau poli tique.

If the still heterogeneous UNR group was more unified in the second
Assembly than in the first, the credit is due partially to Henry Rey, deputy
from the Loire-Atlantique and president of the group since May, 1963, with
the exception of a few weeks in June and July of 1968, when he served as a
Minister of State?⁸³ Unlike some of his predecessors, Rey did not display
his personal ambitions in such a way as to arouse the jealousy and sus-
picion of his peers. Though seemingly an inconditionnel to the outside
world, he was flexible and allowed free discussion in the forty-man bureau
of the group, where most group decisions are effectively made?⁸⁸ His talent
for reaching agreement, plus the government’s frequent willingness to ac-
cept carefully formulated amendments, had restored some decorum to the
UNR group by the end of the second Assembly.

At the beginning of the third Assembly, the government’s decision in
April, 1967, to demand a wide range of delegated legislative powers clearly
revived resentment among Gaullist deputies over the meagerness of the
powers left to them. Edgard Pisani resigned from the cabinet in protest
against the delegated powers decision?⁸⁷ The IndependentRepublican group
accepted that decision only under great and prolonged protest. Albin Chal-
andon most likely is correct in suggesting that on this point, as on many
others, Giscard was only “saying out loud what others [UD-V^e deputies]
are whispering.”¹⁸⁸ By the end of June, 1967, Pompidou was complaining
of the “intolerable” and “inadmissible” attitude of Somemajoritydeputies?⁸⁸

Another source of antagonism between the GaulIist parliamentary group
and the government was de Gaulle’s long-standing preference for a non-
partisan cabinet. To the frequent annoyance of UDR deputies, de Gaulle
has been most reluctant to allow the major government party to be a gov-
erning party. Throughout the life of the first Assembly the UNR never held
a majority of the posts in the government. In the second Assembly, from
1962 to 1967, they enjoyed only a narrow majority of ministries, with such
key posts as foreign affairs and (until January, 1966) finance in the hands
of civil servants. Independents, and a declining representation from other
parties?⁷" When Michel Debre was set aside as Prime Minister in April.
1962, de Gaulle chose as his successor, and presumably majority party

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