“The model of the Fifth Republic no longer works in a world where compromises must be made; we must return to a proportional system,” believes Jean Viard

We are coming out of a politically turbulent week, and the next one does not really look any calmer with, on Monday, the joint committee on immigration law. Political strategies are turning into confrontation, underlines sociologist Jean Viard. Decryption.

Hervé Marseille, centrist senator from Hauts-de-Seine, was the guest of “8h30 franceinfo”, this Saturday, December 16, and he believes that “the conditions are met in our eyes to succeed” to an agreement in the joint committee, on the immigration bill, Monday December 18, where seven senators and seven deputies will meet at 5 p.m.

There was a lot of talk about it on France Info and from all sides: the government’s version suffered the motion of rejection. Emmanuel Macron calls for an intelligent compromise to be found in the service of the general interest. But we have seen that the games, the political strategies in the Assembly take up a lot of space.

franceinfo: We have the impression that a year and a half after the legislative elections, Jean Viard, it is difficult to adapt to the relative majority, to the obligation to ultimately find compromises?

Jean Viard: Yes, it’s difficult, but everyone is looking for a bit of confrontation, so we don’t really know where we’re going, because in fact, what we’re talking about is the immigration of people from color, since the immigration of Ukrainians does not pose any problems.

You say that this is the crux of the debate, is this what actually poses a problem?

Well yes, and then the idea of ​​mixing in a law the fact that we need more work – they keep telling us – for the climate battle, we need to work more or have more workers. Italy has just brought back 500,000 people from the south to create jobs, even though it is a government more to the right than ours. So, we are in an absurd model, we mix ‘more work’ – yes, we need it – ‘more expulsions of delinquents’ – yes, we need it. Basically, that’s what the French think. And we put all that in the same law, without a majority. So, if we succeed, we will really have abandoned the law.

This all seems politically disastrous to me, because it seems like we are completely invaded. We are not invaded. French society is not more brutal, French society is not insecure. There are dramatic cases, there are three deaths per day in France, of course. Second thing, the most important, is that it is reality that changes. The problem is that the Fifth Republic was built when there were two political camps. There was the Church on one side, and the Communist Party on the other, to go very quickly. And then, little by little, the Communist Party was eaten by Mitterand. But there were two camps. So basically each camp could reach 51%. To simplify, right and left too, but we are no longer there.

I am finishing a book that we are writing with Laurent Berger, which will be called: For a society of compromise. We’re not finished, it’ll be out in three or four months. But why ? Because we are in a time of radical rupture: climatic rupture, with its consequences indeed on migrations, but not only. Innovation, our cultural modes, our ways of moving around, the world will change at phenomenal speed in the 21st century.

And the problem is that when there are radical ruptures, do we need radical confrontations or conversely, do we have to learn to make compromises? And so, as a result, in all countries, there are approximately the same percentages. Look at the extreme right, there are 27% in Holland, they say the extreme right has won, we, the extreme right will be almost at 40%, between 37 and 40%, if we add all the lists.

The fragmentation of the political landscape in many countries is linked to the transformation of the issues you say, but if we understand correctly, compromise is difficult to find and that in France, it even seems to be a weakness for the political class sometimes ?

Yes, but it is also because the Fifth Republic model is built for a binary world, and no longer works in a world where compromises must be made. So that means we have to return to a proportional system. The Fifth Republic is a very good rule, in fact it works, but obviously we have to arrive at a society where we will actually be proportional, perhaps weighting, it’s up for discussion, I would be for that we dissolve the chamber and hold a proportional election. It doesn’t need a law.

And what would that change?

But it would change if we knew, during the campaign, that we are not going to govern ourselves. there are some ideas in other camps that we find cool. So I mean, there is no good, bad, good guys, bad guys, and a proportional society requires negotiations, and requires learning negotiation. Look in companies, more than 80% of agreements, and sometimes even 89% of agreements are signed by everyone. And in all companies in France, and by all unions.

So we know how to negotiate since we know how to do it in companies, and the unions are no more in agreement with each other – union and employer struggles are still very violent clashes. We know how to negotiate, simply we need a framework that is a framework of the Fifth Republic and we actually need an intelligent proportional system by telling people: no one is going to be in the majority, so campaign knowing that you are going to negotiate, it will take a bit of time. time. I remind you that Michel Rocard always said: “let’s govern with sociologists”, and he still provided the model of a minority government which, casually, worked well.