Is France ready for the Sixth Republic?

Photo: Pascal Guyot Agence France-Presse Students march in front of a slogan against pension reform that reads: “The Fifth Republic (France’s current republican system of government) is 64 years old, does it finally have the right to retire?,” at Paul Valéry University in Montpellier, April 4, 2023.

Mathieu Carbasse

Published at 0:00 AM Analysis

• Europe

Since Sunday evening, France has been looking for a way out of the political crisis in which it is sinking. Without a clear majority in the National Assembly, without a prime minister in 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 method.

It's a little song that comes back tirelessly – especially on the left – as the elections approach and which has been playing continuously since Sunday evening in reaction to the risk of a lasting blockage at the top of the State .

This song is that of the reform of the Constitution which would give birth in France to a new regime: the Sixth Republic.

Dusty and unsuitable for the current era, the Fifth Republic is in fact singled out by its many detractors. Tailor-made for General de Gaulle in 1958 in order to resolve the Algerian question and put an end to the omnipotence of the political parties which had made the country ungovernable under the Fourth Republic (1940-1958), it would no longer work.

Long promoted by the radical left, and in particular by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who made it one of his hobbyhorses during the presidential elections of 2017 and 2022, the idea of ​​a democratic renewal has made its way to the within civil society.

This is demonstrated by the results of an Ifop survey carried out for the left-wing magazine Politis last July 8 and 9. According to this survey, two out of three French people (63%) today say they are in favor of a constituent process which would give the French people the power to write a new Constitution.

Although less popular on the right, the idea could come back to the forefront as the chances of quickly emerging from the crisis diminish.

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This text is published via our Perspectives section.

Why it's blocked?

The reason for the blockage lies in the results of the last legislative elections. Since Sunday evening, three blocs share 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 enough to form a majority. As President Emmanuel Macron recalled in his letter to the French on July 10, “no one won.”

Deprived of a majority and disowned by a majority of voters, the latter must nevertheless appoint a new prime minister.

In the spirit of the Fifth Republic, this position must go to the leader of the party (or coalition) that came first in the legislative elections. Except that, in the current case, no majority stands out and the risks of seeing the Prime Minister overthrown at the slightest motion of censure are great.

For the political scientist Julien Tourreille, researcher at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair at the University of Quebec in Montreal, the current situation imposes an inverse logic on the spirit of the Fifth 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. Era for which it has no instructions.

The urgency of a democratic renewal

France is heading towards a situation where the government is unable to survive a motion of censure and where only the country's current affairs are dealt with. From ungovernable, it would become ungoverned.

“We can clearly see that the Fifth Republic is showing its limits a little, with a crisis of the two-round majority vote that is no longer playing its role in creating a stable majority in the National Assembly,” explains to DevoirÉmilie Marcovici, lecturer in public law at the Jean Moulin University of Lyon. However, changing the regime – and therefore the Republic – by modifying the Constitution would be difficult, if not impossible. “It would be more than complicated in the current context, because it would be necessary to revise 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 Fifth Republic nevertheless deserves to be be dusted off, so as to have a more balanced system, which gives more space to Parliament. “In practice, the Fifth Republic made the president the true 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 Sixth Republic in his essay The 6th Republic. Why ? How ?. “The Fifth Republic is a very old conception of power, centralized, personalized, vertical, etc. Unfortunately, there is no path to get there quickly, especially in the current context. »

Reform the voting system

If the change of Constitution, and therefore of the Republic, is unlikely to see the light of day soon, there is one reform which 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,” Bastien François explains to Devoir. In 2017, for example, Emmanuel Macron's party won 32% of the votes but 62% of the seats, while this year the National Rally totaled 33% of the votes for 25% of the seats. In the end, it came in third place, behind groups which totaled fewer votes. »

Wanted by President François Mitterrand to block the far right's path to the National Assembly, the two-round single-member majority system created in 1986 would no longer be suited to the French political landscape.

If we were to switch to a single-round proportional system, for example, continues Mr. François, 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, 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 Fifth Republic. »

For Émilie Marcovici, however, moving to proportional voting could generate political instability, by causing small parties to multiply. The solution would therefore be to introduce a dose of proportionality so that the different political currents are better represented at the Palais Bourbon without moving towards full proportionality which would see the extreme right massively entering Parliament. “We must also be careful, because playing with voting methods can be seen as manipulation,” concludes Ms. Marcovici.

Review the way of doing politics

If reforms must be undertaken to modernize 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 putting water in one's wine,” summarizes Julien Tourreille.

The meaning of Consensus had been the basis of the construction of the Republic in Progress in 2017, when Emmanuel Macron rallied center-left and right-wing forces to his side. This same sense of consensus must prevail in the coming weeks, so that the party does not go to ruin.