in june 1951 claude hettier de boislambert stood for election to the national assembly as a representative for the manche department under the flag of the rpf party. the 1951 parliamentary election was conducted according to a list-based system of proportional representation system. in the manche department the rpf received 61,249 of the 199,487 votes recorded, which translated into two seats in the assembly. hettier de boislambert's name was at the top of the party list for the department, so one of the seats went to him. the rpf had been launched a couple of years earlier as a national political party by charles de gaulle in order to campaign for a presidential constitution. de gaulle observed the political status quo of the 1930s and 1940s and concluded that the parliamentary system, which he characterised as "the regime of the parties" did not permit the operation of a strong and efficient state. in 1951 the rpf won 121 of the 625 seats in the parliament, which was more than the number of seats won by any other individual party. nevertheless, the other parties were unanimous over rejecting the idea of giving significantly increased political power to any president, so the rpf was excluded from government coalitions during hettier de boislambert's time as a parliamentarian. his status as an opposition member of the assembly permitted him a degree of independent action that might have been harder to achieve if he had become a member of a government.