Does the French system have coalition governments formed in the absence of a majority?
France does not have a parliamentary form of government.
Since the Referendum on the Direct Election of the President of the French Republic in 1962, the President has been directly elected by universal suffrage; he or she was previously elected by an electoral college.
After the Referendum on the Reduction of the Mandate of the President of the French Republic, 2000, the length of the term was reduced to five years from the previous seven; the first election to a shorter term was held in 2002.
Following a further change, the Constitutional law on the Modernisation of the Institutions of the Fifth Republic, 2008, a president cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac are the only Presidents to date who have served a full two terms (14 years for the former, 12 years for the latter).
French presidential elections are conducted via run-off voting which ensures that the elected President always obtains a majority: if no candidate receives a majority of votes in the first round of voting, the two highest-scoring candidates arrive at a run-off.
The French Fifth Republic is a semi-presidential system. Unlike many other European presidents, the French President is quite powerful. Although it is the Prime Minister of France and parliament that oversee much of the nation's actual day-to-day affairs, the French President wields significant influence and authority, especially in the fields of national security and foreign policy. The president holds the nation's most senior office, and outranks all other politicians.
The president's greatest power is his/her ability to choose the prime minister. However, since the French National Assembly has the sole power to dismiss the Prime Minister's government, the president is forced to name a prime minister who can command the support of a majority in the assembly.