Is it time to put an end to the French presidential system?
The July 7 legislative elections appear to have dispelled the “risk of civil war” that President Emmanuel Macron had linked to the “platforms of the two extremes” in a podcast recorded between the two rounds of voting. However, the results have (once again) led to the seats in the new National Assembly being divided among three political blocs.
William Genieys, Sciences Po and Mohammad-Saïd Darviche, University of Montpellier
This “tripartite division” of political life since 2017 calls into question the functioning of theFifthRepublic, which is described as a semi-presidential system. The existence of an absolute majority in the National Assembly—whether of the same political persuasion as the president or of the opposition—was the prerequisite for forming a representative government. The absence of such a majority, and the political deadlock in forming a government, highlights the limitations of this institutional practice and risks, beyond the vicissitudes of political life, triggering an unprecedented crisis of the French presidential system.
Is the tripartite system an insurmountable challenge for the Fifth Republic?
This “tripartite division” of political life emerged in 2017 following Emmanuel Macron’s first election as President of the Republic. It resulted in the weakening of the so-called “ruling parties”—the Socialist Party and Les Républicains—and the rise of anti-establishment elites at the helm of the National Rally (Marine Le Pen) and La France Insoumise (Jean-Luc Mélenchon).
During this first five-year term, the French presidential system functioned “as usual,” resulting in 308 seats for the president’s party in the legislative elections of June 18, 2017.
Although some constitutional law experts had declared it to be on its last legs, the “majority rule” had enabled the formation of a government supportive of the president. However, during this first presidential term, the “Yellow Vests” movement and the COVID-19 pandemic led to a strengthening of the three-way political divide.
Re-elected in 2022, Emmanuel Macron had to navigate a National Assembly that reflected this reality. With Elisabeth Borne’s government holding only a relative majority of 250 deputies, Ensemble underwent four adjustments and two reshuffles in less than two years of existence, and invoked Article 49.3 of the Constitution 23 times, allowing it to bypass the majority voting procedure for passing laws by having the government assume responsibility before the National Assembly.
The results of the latest legislative elections on July 7 have turned the three-way political divide into a stumbling block for the formation of a government. This situation poses a risk of dysfunction to the pluralist democracy defined by the American political scientist Robert Dahl. To understand this risk, it is important to understand the criticisms of the presidential system.
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Pluralist democracy in the face of the "failures of the presidential system"
In the 1990s, the Hispanic-American sociologist Juan Linz warned of two dangers of the presidential system. First, the danger of a conflict between two sources of democratic legitimacy: that of the president and that of parliament. Second, the danger of the “fixed” term of the president’s office, despite shifts in the political majority in Parliament.
Here we are: a president with three years left in his term facing a legislature that does not support him. Such a situation was overcome during periods of cohabitation under the presidencies of François Mitterrand (1986–1988, 1993–1995) and Jacques Chirac (1997–2002), because an absolute majority opposed to the president in the National Assembly was able to appoint a prime minister capable of governing. In the current situation, the lack of an absolute majority makes forming a government difficult.
This institutional crisis is all the more serious because it is part of a broader crisis of pluralist democracy. According to the American political scientist John Higley, since the end of World War II, democratic regimes have been based on a common foundation of liberal and egalitarian values shared by the vast majority of political elites.
This consensus was underpinned by citizens’ trust in constitutional and legal norms. However, over the past two decades, radical ideologies championed by populist leaders (or elites) and amplified by the digital media landscape have contributed to the erosion of this political culture. In the current French context, the presidential system is likely to undermine the functioning of pluralist democracy.
The end of an “ambiguous consensus”?
Starting in 2017, the approach taken by then-candidate and now President Emmanuel Macron has been to enshrine a culture of consensus under the motto “at the same time.”
The aim was to make the president and his movement the embodiment of political consensus. This strategy involved weakening the governing parties, even at the risk of pandering to extremism. It failed in 2022 when the president’s party lost its absolute majority in the National Assembly. The culture of consensus then became little more than a mantra in the face of the almost routine use of the Article 49.3 procedure.
As a result, the opposition, clearly backed by public opinion, was able to denounce this as a “power grab.”
In this context, it appears that the presidential system has not only become a “thing”—to paraphrase General de Gaulle’s remark about the UN —that is obsolete in light of the changing French political landscape, but also a potential threat to pluralist democracy.
The Republic Beyond the Presidential System
What should be done? Moving toward an American-style presidential system seems ill-advised, especially given the heightened polarization that has taken hold there since the mid-1990s and the way Donald Trump has exploited it—and continues to do so—since January 6, 2021, and the storming of the Capitol by his supporters.
It seems more logical to follow the path of parliamentary democracy taken by other European countries. Not that this is a panacea, but for now, it would be more in line with the political pluralism expressed at the ballot box, and could also prevent populist leaders from seizing upon the tools of the presidential system.
Building on favorable public opinion (63% of French people support this), the President of the Republic now has the opportunity to work with the President of the Senate and the President of the National Assembly to launch a process of constitutional reform that brings our democracy into line with the current three-party political system while preserving its pluralism.
Such a reform would help mitigate the risks of a presidential system by establishing a National Assembly elected through a majority-vote system supplemented by a “dose of proportional representation.” Furthermore, this approach would prevent populist leaders from gaining the institutional tools they might use to exploit the presidential system for authoritarian ends.
William Genieys, CNRS Research Director at the CEE, Sciences Po and Mohammad-Saïd Darviche, Associate Professor, University of Montpellier
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