As the second round of the legislative elections takes place this Sunday, July 7, if the prospect of cohabitation is receding, that of a coalition government is approaching with the prospect of an Assembly without any majority emerging and which could experience a deadlock situation. Can the Senate be an effective counter-power?
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In a situation without a clear winnerthe risk of institutional blockage is real. But the Assembly does not decide alone, it is also necessary to deal with the Senate.
If the upper house is indeed a counter-power, for Bruno Cautrès, political scientist at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po (Cevipof), its effects are limited: ” Constitutionally, the Senate has no say in what happens in the Assembly. Where it has a say with the Assembly is when Congress is convened for a qualified majority of ⅗ for constitutional revisions. »
And regardless of the configuration, the Fifth Republic still has several institutional bulwarks, even in a de facto majority situation. This is the principle of the separation of powers. A role that is even more advanced in a period of cohabitation: ” With the Constitutional Council, of course. We must always look at a Constitution as a set of gears and mechanisms that are linked to each other to avoid one of the actors being in a position to dominate everything, to control everything, recalls Bruno Cautrès. All institutional mechanisms act as counterweights to the others. Obviously, the entire judicial system also guarantees the balance of powers. »
If the institutions of the Fifth Republic were designed to manage cases of relative majorities, they were not designed to manage cases of absence of majority at all. In this case, the government would be under permanent threat of a motion of censure. It is around these questions that the Senate can play its good offices, in any case be a transmission belt for dialogue between today’s presidential majority and Les Républicains. » A situation which would therefore be unprecedented under the Fifth Republic.
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