The law established the Vichy regime and passed with 569 votes to 80, with 20 abstentions.

The law gave all the government powers to Philippe Pétain, and further authorized him to take all necessary measures to write a new constitution.

[1] Pétain interpreted this as de facto suspending the French Constitutional Laws of 1875 which established the Third Republic, even though the law did not explicitly suspend it, but only granted him the power to write a new constitution.

The next day, by Act No 2, Pétain defined his powers and abrogated all the laws of the Third Republic that were incompatible with them.

[3][4] The Ordinance of 9 August 1944 was an ordinance promulgated by the Provisional Government of the French Republic after D-Day asserting the nullity of the Constitutional Law of 1940 and other classes of law passed later by Vichy.