To believe Article 20 of the French constitution, it is the government, not the president, which "determines and conducts the nation's political affairs". The reality is somewhat different. Notwithstanding the assembly's right to sack the government, the latter is in practice a creature of the Élysée's occupant.
And Sunday's National Assembly elections, in effect a third round of the recent presidentials, very much confirmed what Le Monde and others have called the "présidentialisation" of French politics. "L'etat c'est moi," Louis XIV is supposed to have said, a presumption that President Nicolas Sarkozy might be tempted to share, although he would be unwise to articulate it publicly.
After a huge turnout put Mr Sarkozy into office only a few weeks ago, and apparently convinced that the assembly elections were a tiresome sideshow that would only confirm that result, voters deserted the polls on Sunday to produce the lowest turnout in 40 years. A quarter of those who voted in the second round of the presidential election did not bother to do so again, and the left will have a hard week reinvigorating its demoralised base ahead of the second round at the weekend. Its warnings that too large a majority poses real dangers to French democracy - "a republic has to have counterweights," Ségolene Royal pleaded - sound like desperate admissions of defeat.
The 46 per cent achieved by Mr Sarkozy's UMP is no small achievement and will probably mean over 400 seats in the 577-seat assembly. "The success of the UMP is without precedent in the Fifth Republic," the conservative Le Figaro argued, pointing to the reality that no outgoing government has been returned to office in 30 years. Yet if the Gaullists of the UMP continue to be in power, policy continuity is not the order of the day, a prospect which undoubtedly contributed to the Sarkozy landslide.
Mr Sarkozy's prime minister, François Fillon, who led the legislative campaign on his behalf, appealed for "a majority to enable me to take action" and has promised a summer parliamentary session to endorse a radical cocktail he sees as a shock therapy programme for the French economy. That will include a €7.5 billion tax cut package, possibly funded by increases in VAT to balance the books, curbs on union power and cuts in the state sector. Mr Sarkozy has also promised to ease rules limiting the working week to 35 hours, tougher sentences for repeat offenders and stricter immigration rules.
Mr Sarkozy will have his comfortable majority for such measures but, as the business daily La Tribune pointed out yesterday, "when parliament is silent, the street does not take long to speak". Although his overwhelming mandate may temporarily stay the response on the streets, and despite the demoralisation of the socialist opposition and marginalisation of the small protest parties of left and right, Mr Sarkozy has not stopped history. France being France, his honeymoon may not be long.