He felt that the "regime of the parties" under the French Third Republic's system of parliamentary government (characterised by its political instability and ever-changing coalitions) was a cause of the 1940 collapse.

However, the three main parties considered parliamentary democracy to be inseparable from the ideology of French republicanism.

The Christian-Democrats campaigned for the "No" with de Gaulle and the opponents to a constitutional change (the classical Right and the Rally of the Republican Lefts dominated by the Radical Party).

The "No" coalition warned the voters against the danger of a "dictatorship" of an Assembly dominated by the Marxists, which could question the existence of private property.

The Communists and the Socialists no longer formed a majority, so the MRP was a necessary partner for the writing of a constitutional text.