France’s political institutions are creaking

The writer is editorial director and a columnist at Le Monde

Marine Le Pen wore black for the vote of no confidence against the French government last Wednesday, as if dressed for the funeral of a system that she claims to respect but works tirelessly to undermine. Meanwhile, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the leftwing La France Insoumise, watched from the visitors’ gallery of the National Assembly as members began to cast their votes. Satisfied that his troops had obeyed his instructions, he left before the final tally was made.

Thus did far right and far left join forces to bring down Michel Barnier’s centrist government after a little more than three months, plunging France into the unknown. This is a new stage in the crisis opened by last summer’s snap legislative elections, which failed to produce a majority. The crisis is now so deep that President Emmanuel Macron had to insist, in a stern televised address on Thursday evening, that he would not resign.

Is this the twilight of the Fifth Republic? Founded by General de Gaulle with a custom-made constitution in 1958, it was designed to bring stability after decades of chaotic parliamentary rule, establishing a balance between parliament, on the one hand, and a head of state endowed with wide-ranging powers, on the other. The system became more presidential after a referendum held in 1962 led to the head of state being elected by universal suffrage rather than by an electoral college. Unfortunately, this carefully crafted arrangement no longer seems to be working.

Jean-Louis Bourlanges, an experienced centrist politician and astute observer of political history who quit parliament last summer, says we are entering a new phase in this institutional balance. For a long time, the presidential and parliamentary majorities were aligned, allowing left and right to alternate in an orderly manner. The era of so-called cohabitation began in the late 1980s, when elections produced opposing majorities for the president and parliament. Presidents François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac managed the arrangement with some success, governing with prime ministers from opposing parties.

Cohabitation worked because it was driven by mainstream parties — Chirac’s centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire and Mitterrand’s Socialists — which shared the same vision of the political system. But these two parties collapsed when Macron bulldozed his way on to the political scene and won his first term as president in 2017. Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National flourished amid the ruins of the mainstream party system. Mélenchon took the radical route.

Macron defeated Le Pen to win a second term in April 2022, but saw his majority shrink and a large number of RN deputies enter parliament after the legislative elections that followed. Bourlanges believes that this is when Macron should have given more leeway to parliament and the prime minister, thereby rebalancing the relationship between the Elysée and the legislative branch of government.

Meanwhile, the demographic and cultural fabric of French society had changed. Issues that barely registered when the Fifth Republic was born — such as immigration, globalisation and European integration — roiled the political landscape. And across Europe, new movements challenged the liberal democratic consensus.

The result was the tripartite parliament that emerged from this summer’s elections, with three roughly equal blocs — left, centre and far right — and no majority. These blocs, two of which contest the pillars of the existing settlement, hate each other and seem unable to co-operate except to bring down the government. This all points to a dysfunctional system.

This is why forcing Macron to resign would probably not solve anything. Since the constitution does not allow fresh legislative elections to be held before July next year, a new president still would not have a parliamentary majority to govern with. Here is another flaw in the system: despite grand proclamations that the snap election had seen power shift from the Elysée Palace to the Palais Bourbon where the National Assembly sits, too many leading politicians — from left, right and centre — are in fact driven by their desire to compete in the next presidential election in 2027. It is already a very crowded field.

For all this, few experts think the time has come to bury the Fifth Republic. The constitution, they argue, offers flexibility. As for Macron, he is gambling that the formidable spirit of unity and co-operation that enabled Notre-Dame to rise from the ashes may yet inspire politicians — and make Le Pen’s choice of mourning garb look premature.