Usage
Under the Second Republic, usage of the Great Seal of France tended to be reduced to sealing laws, decrees of the National Assembly and diplomatic treaties. The function of Keeper of the seals was officially linked to that of Minister of Justice at that time (the French Minister of Justice is popularly referred to "Le Garde des Sceaux").
After the Second Empire, the practice of applying seals to laws was gradually abandoned and restricted to constitutional acts and diplomatic treaties (for instance, the Treaty of Versailles was sealed in this way).
Under the Fourth Republic, the only document to be sealed was the Constitution of the 27 October 1946.
Since the Fifth Republic, after sealing the Constitution of the 4 October 1958, it became common practice to seal some constitutional modifications. Used in 1946, and twice at the beginning of the Fifth Republic, the sealing ceremonies became much less common from 1963 to 1991 period when only two laws - ordinary, but of great symbolic importance - were sealed. Since 1992, the pace of ceremonies has increased again: the constitutional changes since then were often the subject of a seal.
The date of the ceremony was very close to the date of passage of the law until 1964. It was subsequently clearly separated from the vote and publication of the text. An extreme case consists in the Constitutional Law nr. 99-569 of July 8, 1999 on equality between women and men, sealed March 8, 2002, two and a half years after the entry into force of the law.
Sealing ceremonies are always held at the Chancellerie where the Keeper of the Seals, the Minister of Justice, holds a sealing press affixed to a best and the unique matrices of the Seal of the State.
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