Since Sunday evening, France has been looking for a way out of the political crisis it is sinking into. Without a clear majority in the National Assembly, without a prime minister at Matignon and without a government, more and more French people are calling for a profound overhaul of their democratic institutions. And this renewal could involve a reform of the Constitution and the voting system.
It’s a little song that comes back tirelessly – especially on the left – as the elections approach and which has been playing on a loop since Sunday evening in reaction to the risk of a lasting blockage at the top of the State.
This song is about the reform of the Constitution which would give birth in France to a new regime: the VIe Republic.
Dusty and unsuited to today’s times, the Ve The Republic is indeed singled out by its many detractors. Tailor-made for General de Gaulle in 1958 in order to resolve the Algerian question and to put an end to the all-powerful political parties which had made the country ungovernable under the IVe Republic (1940-1958), it would no longer function.
Long promoted by the radical left, and in particular by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who made it one of his hobby horses during the presidential elections of 2017 and 2022, the idea of a democratic renewal has made its way within civil society.
This is evidenced by the results of an Ifop poll carried out for the left-wing magazine Politics on July 8 and 9. According to this poll, two out of three French people (63%) now say they are in favor of a constituent process that would give the French the power to write a new Constitution.
Although less popular on the right, the idea could return to the forefront as the chances of emerging from the crisis quickly diminish.
Why is it blocking?
The reason for the deadlock lies in the results of the last legislative elections. Since Sunday evening, three blocs have shared 85% of the seats in the National Assembly: the New Popular Front (182 seats), the presidential camp (168) and the National Rally (143).
No party, no coalition has what it takes to form a majority. As President Emmanuel Macron recalled in his letter to the French people on July 10, “no one has won.”
Deprived of a majority and disowned by a large part of the voters, the latter must nevertheless appoint a new prime minister.
In the spirit of the Ve Republic, this position should go to the leader of the party (or coalition) that came out on top in the legislative elections. Except that, in the current case, no majority emerges and the risks of seeing the Prime Minister overthrown at the slightest motion of censure are great.
For political scientist Julien Tourreille, researcher at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair at the University of Quebec in Montreal, the current situation imposes a logic that is the opposite of the spirit of the Ve Republic. “Emmanuel Macron must find a prime minister, not who has a majority in the Assembly, but rather who does not have a majority against him in the Assembly.”
Which means that France is entering a new era, that of coalitions, where each camp must review its expectations in order to bring out enough common points necessary to be able to govern. An era for which it has no instructions.
The urgency of democratic renewal
France is heading towards a situation where the government is unable to survive a motion of censure and only the country’s current affairs are dealt with. From ungovernable, it would become ungoverned.
“We can clearly see that the Ve “The Republic is showing its limits somewhat, with a crisis of the two-round majority vote which is no longer playing its role in creating a stable majority in the National Assembly,” explains the Duty Émilie Marcovici, lecturer in public law at the Jean Moulin University in Lyon. However, changing the regime — and therefore the Republic — by amending the Constitution would be difficult, if not impossible. “It would be more than complicated in the current context, because it would require revising Article 89 of the Constitution, which would require the agreement of the National Assembly and the Senate. It seems compromised, given the current situation,” she says.
For Bastien François, professor of political science at the Sorbonne, the Ve The Republic would nevertheless deserve to be dusted off, in order to have a more balanced system, which gives more space to Parliament. “In practice, the Ve “The Republic made the president the real head of government, but the latter is not responsible to Parliament. This hyper-presidentialism of the regime no longer works,” summarizes the man who theorized the VIe Republic in his essay The 6e Republic. Why? How? “The Ve Republic is a very old concept of power, centralized, personalized, vertical, etc. Unfortunately, there is no path to get there quickly, especially in the current context.
Reform the voting system
Although the change of the Constitution, and therefore of the Republic, has little chance of seeing the light of day soon, there is one reform that has been on everyone’s lips since Sunday evening: that of the method of appointing deputies.
“The challenge is to prevent a party with a minority of votes from having a majority of seats,” he explains to Duty Bastien François: In 2017, for example, Emmanuel Macron’s party won 32% of the vote but 62% of the seats, while this year the National Rally won 33% of the vote for 25% of the seats. In the end, it came in third place, behind groups that won fewer votes.
Wanted by President François Mitterrand to block the far right’s path to the National Assembly, the two-round single-member majority vote created in 1986 is no longer suited to the French political landscape.
If we were to move to a single-round proportional vote, for example, Mr François continues, this would reduce the possibility of a far-right majority in Parliament, in addition to allowing all parties to be represented in a better democratic expression.
“The other advantage of proportional representation is that the prime minister would come from the party that came out on top, even if it was a minority party, but which had built a majority coalition. In this system, the prime minister imposes himself, the president no longer chooses him. We are therefore changing the spirit of the Ve Republic. “
For Émilie Marcovici, however, moving to proportional representation could generate political instability by causing the number of small parties to multiply. The solution would therefore be to introduce a dose of proportionality so that the different political currents are better represented in the Palais Bourbon without moving towards full proportional representation which would see the far right enter Parliament en masse. “We must also be careful, because playing on voting methods can be perceived as manipulation,” concludes Mme Marcovici.
Rethinking the way politics is done
If reforms are to be undertaken to modernise the French political system, the political class as a whole will have to work to find a consensus.
“The French have difficulty accepting that parliamentary work also means making concessions,” sums up Julien Tourreille.
The sense of consensus had been the basis for the construction of the Republic on the move in 2017, when Emmanuel Macron had rallied forces from the centre-left and the right. This same sense of consensus will have to prevail in the coming weeks, so that the party does not now go to its doom.