Since the beginning of the French Fifth Republic, there were seven presidents. They offer the opportunity in understanding, studying and comparing the sources and impacts of leadership capital on the political fortunes of these seven presidents. Under the same constitution, the institutional context considerably varied and these variations can explain the sources and impacts of leadership capital.
The three first presidents of the Fifth Republic (de Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing) had a position of distrust towards political parties. They were candidates before seeking support from political parties. This position was the evidence of a strong personalisation of the presidential election. Their goal was to give them a legitimacy coming from a popular election above political parties.
The four other presidents (Mitterrand, Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande) were chairmen of their political party before becoming president. It has resulted in an increasing partisanisation of the office. A presidential election victory is built on both a candidate who can appeal to a large part of the electorate, but also a party at the core of a coalition of parties. These presidents realised the need for a strong party base, both in parliamentso that he could run the government, and in the country to help win re-election.
