The Fourth Republic (1946-1958) followed the Liberation. It saw reconstruction, the beginnings of European integration and decolonisation, but suffered from great ministerial instability, before de Gaulle’s return in 1958. Its two presidents, Vincent Auriol and then René Coty, held a largely arbitral role: power lay with the Assembly and the heads of government. The Indochina War and then the Algerian War weakened the regime, which collapsed in the crisis of May 1958.