[1][page needed] The constitution laws could be roughly divided into three laws: At that time France was not defined or organized by a genuine constitution.

The situation continued during the Vichy Period, where the French Constitutional Law of 1940, along with Philippe Pétain's "Act No.

The laws were legally revoked only during the promulgation of the French Constitution of 1946.

Since the fall of the Second Empire, France had been living under an interim government following the proclamation of the Government of National Defense by Léon Gambetta on 4 September 1870.

Several laws were passed by the National Assembly, the unicameral body of the French parliament elected in 1871, to organize the state's provisional institutions: