The five-year term. The new equilibrium of the Presidential Republic

The issue of the length of the presidential term of office cannot be separated from the question of the balance of power in the Fifth Republic, and thus the question of its very essence.
The five-year term of presidency, foreseen in 1973 and definitively enacted by referendum on September 24, 2000, comes out of a tendency toward expansion of presidential powers since 1962, as well as from the decision to elect the President of the Republic by direct popular vote.
Aligning the five-year term with that of the Assemblée nationale redefines shared governance between the President and the Prime Minister by removing the electoral unbalance that created the cohabitation (i.e. opposing camps of political goals and parties in power) as in the past. Although the 1958 Constitution stressed its ability to adapt to any political situation, the five-year term makes the clear choice of effectively favoring concurrent majorities, both parliamentary and presidential.
However, this choice is more of a beginning than an end. In 2001 a new electoral agenda followed the five-year term reform. Subsequently, there was a major revision of the Constitution in 2008. As a result we have seen a reconfiguration of the President's role, a net increase in the importance of presidential election, and finally, political and partisan polarization.
Ten years after its inception, the five-year term forces the Fifth Republic to choose either to adapt the majoritarian presidentialism within and among existing divisions of government or to initiate a transition toward a Sixth Republic and a purely presidential regime.