Is it time to put an end to French-style presidentialism?
The July 7 legislative elections appear to have removed the "risk of civil war" that President Emmanuel Macron had associated with the "programs of the two extremes" in a podcast recorded between the two rounds of voting. However, their results have (re)led to the division of seats in the new National Assembly into three political blocs.
William Genieys, Sciences Po and Mohammad-Saïd Darviche, University of Montpellier
This "tripartition" of political life since 2017 calls into question the functioning of theFifth Republic, described as a semi-presidential regime. The existence of an absolute majority in the National Assembly - of the same or opposite political color to that of the President - was the condition for establishing a representative government. The non-existence of such a majority, and the political stalemate in forming a government, shows the limits of this institutional practice and risks, beyond the vagaries of political life, leading to an unprecedented crisis of French-style presidentialism.
Tripartition, an insurmountable challenge for the Vᵉ Republic?
This "tripartition" of political life saw the light of day in 2017 when Emmanuel Macron was first elected President of the Republic. It resulted in the weakening of the so-called "government" parties - the Socialist Party and the Republicans - and the rise of anti-elite elites at the helm of the Rassemblement national (Marine Le Pen) and La France insoumise (Jean-Luc Mélenchon).
During this first quinquennium, French-style presidentialism had functioned "normally", giving 308 deputy seats to the President's party in the legislative elections of June 18, 2017.
Although predicted to be at the end of its life by some constitutional law specialists, the "majority fact" had enabled the formation of a government favorable to the president. However, during this first presidential term, the "yellow vests " movement and the Covid-19 pandemic led to a strengthening of the political tripartition.
Re-elected in 2022, Emmanuel Macron has had to deal with a National Assembly that reflects this reality. Elisabeth Borne's government, with only a relative majority of 250 MPs, has undergone four adjustments and two reshuffles in less than two years of existence, and has made use on 23 occasions of Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which authorizes bypassing the procedure for majority adoption of laws by committing the government's responsibility before the National Assembly.
The results of the last legislative elections on July 7 have turned the political tripartition into a stumbling block for the formation of a government. This situation poses a risk of dysfunction for the pluralist democracy defined by the American political scientist Robert Dahl. To understand this risk, it is important to understand the critics of presidentialism.
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Pluralist democracy and the "failures of presidentialism
In the 1990s, Spanish-American sociologist Juan Linz warned of two dangers of presidentialism. Firstly, that of dual democratic legitimacy: that of the president and that of parliament, which can compete with each other. Secondly, that of the "fixity" of the president's term of office, despite changes in the political majority in parliament.
Here we are: a president with three years left on his term of office facing an assembly that is not in his favor. Such a situation was overcome by periods of cohabitation under the presidencies of François Mitterrand (1986-1988, 1993-1995) and Jacques Chirac (1997-2002), as 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 absence of an absolute majority makes the formation of a government complex.
This institutional crisis is all the more serious as it is part of the more global crisis of pluralist democracy. According to the American political scientist John Higley, since the end of the Second World War, 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' confidence in constitutional and legal rules. Over the past twenty years, however, radical ideologies promoted by populist leaders (or elites) and enhanced by a media-digital environment have weakened this political culture. In the current French context, presidentialism is likely to alter the functioning of pluralist democracy.
The end of an "ambiguous consensus"?
As early as 2017, the choice of candidate and then president Emmanuel Macron was to sanctuarize the culture of consensus around the leitmotiv "at the same time".
The aim was to make the President and his movement the embodiment of political consensus. This strategy involved weakening government parties at the risk of flattering extremists. It failed in 2022, when the presidential party lost its absolute majority in the National Assembly. The culture of consensus then became incantatory in the face of the quasi-banalized practice of the Article 49.3 procedure.
Opposition parties, visibly supported by public opinion, were able to denounce the "passage en force".
Against this backdrop, it would appear that presidentialism has not only become an obsolete "contraption" - to paraphrase General de Gaulle's comment on the UN - in the light of France's changing political landscape, but also a potential danger to pluralist democracy.
The Republic beyond presidentialism
What to do? Going in the direction of an American-style presidentialism seems ill-advised, especially when we see the exacerbated bipolarization that has taken hold since the mid-1990s and the way Donald Trump has played and is playing since January 06, 2021 and the Assault on the Capitol by his supporters.
It would seem more logical to take the parliamentary route taken in other European countries. Not that it's a panacea, but for the time being, it would be more in keeping with the political pluralism expressed at the ballot box, and could also avoid providing populist leaders with the weapons of presidentialism.
Backed by favorable public opinion(63% of the French are in favor), the President of the Republic now has the opportunity to initiate, with the President of the Senate and the President of the National Assembly, a process of constitutional reform that will bring our democracy into line with the current political tripartition, while preserving its pluralism.
Such a revision would make it possible to avoid the perils of presidentialism, by making way for a National Assembly elected by majority vote with a "dose of proportionality". It would also avoid providing institutional weapons for populist leaders who might hijack presidentialism for authoritarian ends.
William Genieys, CNRS Research Director at CEE, Sciences Po and Mohammad-Saïd Darviche, Senior Lecturer, University of Montpellier
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