“Compromise is experienced as a compromise”estimates political scientist Pascal Perrineau and professor emeritus of universities at Sciences Po on Sunday June 26, while Emmanuel Macron has instructed Elisabeth Borne to sound out the parliamentary groups in order to form a “action government” beginning of July.
Do you believe in this coalition government in France?
The task is difficult because we are not in a truly parliamentary system. We are in a mixed regime, both presidential and parliamentary. France also has the particularity of having the two main opposition groups (LFI and RN, editor’s note) in the hands of parties which are parties which have very little or even no culture of government and which practice radical opposition to the government. For them, there is no question of compromising on anything. The compromise is experienced as a compromise and therefore it will have to be done with the rest of the political parties.
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So far, the Republicans have said they are unavailable. Therefore, we must be very attentive to the possible creation of groups between, on the one hand, the Socialist Party, the Greens and the Macronie or various right-wing groups, on the other side. At the moment, there are negotiations for groups of this type to be born in order to possibly play the opening of the “Macronian majority”.
Isn’t Emmanuel Macron’s strategy ultimately to weaken the opposition by creating internal divisions, even if it means actually creating new groups?
This is certainly the president’s strategy. But there have always been small groups that represent the center left or the center right. It is perhaps with these groups that the Head of State will manage to “tinker” with an absolute majority. It will be tinkering because as opposed to parliamentary democracies, whether in Denmark, Germany, Italy or Spain, there is a compromise that is entirely built on long negotiations. There, it is not a question of long negotiations. Emmanuel Macron has set a very brief roadmap for Elisabeth Borne, everything must be completed in early July. And for the moment, it’s more individual contacts rather than a negotiation where different groups sit around the table to try to build a lasting government contract as was the case in Germany.
It will therefore be complicated for the Head of State to pass his reforms. Can we imagine agreements on a case-by-case basis, depending on the texts?
Absolutely. We can see how, basically, on economic and social issues, the right could, on such and such a project, get closer to the majority. On the other hand, on the social and the societal, it would rather happen on the left side. Important politicians like Yannick Jadot with the Greens or certain socialists say moreover that they will take a step towards the majority on such and such a bill, if that seems to them to go in their direction. On the other hand, on the side of La France insoumise, the radicalism of the opposition is extremely different. And for the moment, the radical position is paying off, but it won’t last very long because after a while, public opinion, and even leftist opinion, will get tired of a position that will be perceived as a blocking position of the type “I don’t want to know anything”.
These compromises between the majority on one side and the left or the right on the other, isn’t this ultimately a good thing for the country?
Little by little we are discovering what parliamentarism is. Many French people called for a parliamentary counterweight to what they saw as the excessive power of the presidency. Now here we are.