system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do some countries only have Presidents or Prime Ministers, but some countries have both? And those that have both, why is it that in some places the President is more powerful (e.g. France) and in others the Prime Minister is more powerful (e.g. Germany)?
gpt
Broadly speaking, there are two main types of government systems, parliamentary and presidential. There's a lot of variation within those types, and some countries don't really fit into either, but most countries do.

In a presidential system the president is the head of state and the head of government. They are the ceremonial leader of the country as well as being in charge of actually running the country.

In a parliamentary system, parliament picks a prime minister (or equivalent) who runs the country, but they have a separate head of state who had limited powers.

Some parliamentary countries have a monarchy, so the monarch is the head of state. But others have a president who is either elected or appointed by parliament. Either way, their role is fairly similar.

France is one of the countries that is somewhere in between the two. It has a semi-presidential system. So the President has quite a lot of power, but there is also a PM who is in charge of various aspects of running the country.