Jean-Jacques Urvoas knows the nooks and crannies of joint committees. The one who must complete – in one direction or another – the “immigration” bill carried with difficulty by Gérald Darmanin, and who has animated political life for a week, surprises by what she says about the state of our institutions. In the eyes of the professor of public law, it tells above all and above all the dangerous connections between the executive of Emmanuel Macron and Parliament.
L’Express: Minister or deputy, you have known or chaired more than one CMP. What is your opinion on this one, which seems to attract all the national attention?
Jean-Jacques Urvoas: It will probably remain in the annals because of the multiplication of originalities which punctuate its progress: a reorientation of bicameralism for the benefit of the Senate, an undermining of the traditional closed session by the public exposure of the demands, an evanescence of the majority group brought back to the rank of substitute for a minority group, a bypass of participants transformed into spectators of side discussions, etc. Unfortunately, this creativity does not seem to benefit efficiency since it continues to fall from Charybdis to Scylla.
14 parliamentarians from both Chambers… Isn’t the CMP, which is seen as the anteroom for compromise, basically a sort of black box of the Fifth Republic?
I believe it is exactly the opposite. The CMP is one of the rare places where useful negotiations can take place in a republic which is full of restrictive mechanisms. It is also the only stage of a legislative process from which the government is absent. In a CMP, it is therefore up to parliamentarians, while not denying themselves, to seek an outcome acceptable to all. This type of instance exists in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and Spain. Everywhere, there are peaceful instances whose progress is without a hitch.
“I imagine that the last of the heirs of Gaullism that LR counts must be surprised…”
For this, on the “immigration” text, negotiations with Les Republicans were led by Elisabeth Borne and monitored very closely by Emmanuel Macron. Is this the role of the executive?
Materially, it can only have influence, since the Constitution deprives the executive of any means of action. Naturally, as a general rule, the minister who carries the text is not disinterested in either the preparation of the CMP or its progress. It is therefore usual for preliminary meetings to be organized between the rapporteur of the Assembly, or even that of the Senate, if the latter supports the president, for the purpose of ironing out foreseeable difficulties. All members of a CMP know when their work begins what the outcome will be. The tension and twists are very rare.
What is very singular in the moment we are experiencing is first of all that it is the Prime Minister who seemed to pilot these “pre-CMPs” and who weighs on the progress of the work. Then it was she who led the discussions with the president of the LR group in the Assembly, or even with the president of the party, who are not members of the CMP. It is obviously totally unusual for the head of state to get involved in these parallel exchanges. I imagine that the last of the heirs of Gaullism that LR counts must be surprised, because all this smacks of the bad times of the Fourth Republic…
Whether the CMP is conclusive or not, does the chaotic sequence say anything about our institutional situation?
It is the symptom of something little admittedly obvious: under the Fifth Republic, power belonged to the majority of the Assembly. Traditionally, the president is presented as excessively powerful, but, since June 2022, he appears terribly powerless. We are therefore experiencing neither a simple parliamentary incident nor an institutional crisis. We discover that we cannot govern against the majority of the Assembly. This is why his absence has made political life erratic for eighteen months. Indeed, if the president cannot count on a coherent majority, the numerical superiority of the oppositions does not form a political majority either. As long as the executive does not integrate this reality, it will go from disappointment to disappointment.
Politically, how do you explain all the difficulties of Emmanuel Macron and his government in achieving their goals on this text?
Perhaps it is because neither the president nor the prime minister values Parliament? As they have never been members, as they do not understand its logic and uses, they consider it as a necessary evil. So they do not hesitate to brutalize him. We could read that the presidents of the two Assemblies had pleaded for the CMP to be convened in January, to allow time for discussion. The head of state chose haste. This was obviously not a good idea.
“It is not the Vᵉ that should be incriminated but the interpretation made of it by the president, the government and two or three parliamentary groups.”
Does this sound like the end of “at the same time”?
We should probably hope that this sounds especially like a wake-up call. On June 23, 2022, in an interview, Emmanuel Macron lucidly stated: “We must learn to govern and legislate differently.” Except that, since then, on the texts that the executive presents as emblematic, no method intended to seek compromises has seen the light of day.
We have the impression of witnessing a major face-to-face between a noisy and messy Parliament, where no compromise is possible, and an executive that is implacable with parliamentarians. Have we seen this before?
With different illustrations, we have already seen citizens deserting the spectacle offered by political actors. Each election attests, through the increase in abstention, to the growing indifference of voters. The room empties. All this can serve the calculations of a Bonapartist candidate in the next presidential election, who, relying on the image of absolute sterility that these political upheavals convey, will propose to govern by bypassing Parliament. I am not sure that the general interest will benefit.
Isn’t this also a sign that the Vᵉ is worn out?
Paradoxically, I don’t believe it. It is not the Vᵉ that should be incriminated but the interpretation made of it by the president, the government and two or three parliamentary groups. Just because you know the rules of football doesn’t mean you can predict the outcome of a match. The place occupied by the players is decisive. And finally, fortunately, because behaviors are easier to modify than the articles of our Basic Law.
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