A member of parliament for twenty-nine years, François Cornut-Gentille has retired from national political life since Laurence Robert-Dehault, candidate for the National Rally, beat him in 2022. This LR elected official from Saint-Dizier, in Haute-Marne, maintains a sharp eye on power. France’s number one problem after the legislative elections, in his eyes? Not the lack of a majority or the lack of a culture of compromise, but “general mediocrity” and “the inability to think about long-term issues”, lashes out this specialist in defense issues.
In Knowledge is power. Getting out of democratic impotence (Gallimard), his essay published in 2021, the former parliamentarian advocated the creation of a new elected assembly, in addition to Parliament, exclusively responsible for assessing substantive issues: ecology, pensions, artificial intelligence, etc. A reflection that he clarifies and renews with the Express.
The Express: Does the result of these legislative elections herald the death throes of the Fifth Republic?
François Cornut-Gentille: Since 2017, the deconstruction of our democracy has been accelerating. The process of adhesion through voting is broken. There is only a process of rejection. We vote against the power in place, against the FN, against the RN. This goes back further: apart from Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, for forty years, all parliamentary majorities have been overturned during the following election.
Do we measure the astonishing message sent by the French with these repeated defeats of those who govern? I don’t think so. We welcome the change, but that means that the citizens are unhappy. All those who win think they will do better than the previous ones. And in fact, no. Even the success of the RN in the ballot boxes marks this process of rejection. People do not vote RN out of real support, they say: “They are the only ones we haven’t tried”, “after all, why not”. It is a vote in reverse.
Can the composition of the National Assembly, which will require compromises, change the situation?
No. The crisis we are experiencing is a crisis of substance and content. In parallel with this process of rejection, the parties have stopped working. Slogans have replaced knowledge of the issues in their complexity, the National Assembly has become a big theater. However, it is the acceptance of complexity that allows compromises and promotes dialogue. We say: “Let’s repeal the pension reform”, but once we have said that, no sustainable alternative solution has really been thought of. Political posturing has replaced the sense of responsibility: when we have not won, we only think about making the situation worse while waiting for the next presidential election. In these conditions, it is impossible to think about the long-term issues on which we would nevertheless cruelly need to move forward in order not to fall behind: artificial intelligence, ecology, pensions, immigration, etc.
Is lack of knowledge of the issues really enough to explain political disagreements? Between the left, the center, the right and the extreme right, there are ideologies, visions of the world that are deeply divergent.
It is not a question of everyone agreeing, but of accepting complexity. We do not govern only with punchlines. When you work thoroughly on a subject, you realize that this or that solution is more complicated than expected, that there are perverse effects. This is important. I have often seen it with mayors, very ideological before being elected, but they realize, with the exercise of power, that it is not so simple.
Under the Fourth Republic, very different parties worked together, a mutual respect united them, sometimes built by the Resistance. Politicians had a sense of History. Today, we use History but with the feeling of no longer making it. The use of the expression “Popular Front” by the left is striking: we cling to ancient history more than to a promise of the future.
How can we explain the lack of investment by politicians in long-term issues?
Since 1789, it has been part of French culture to dissociate the ideological debate, led by elected officials, from management, left to technicians, in fact to the administration, which has now taken power in France. There are periods when the two issues come together, such as under the Fourth Republic, but this is rare.
“I would like to see the creation of a new elected assembly, responsible for in-depth reflection.”
What is striking is that in other countries, such as Germany, management is given much more space, particularly because the political parties have many points of agreement, such as on industry. Being able to concentrate on substantive issues is an advantage. We need to evolve if we do not want to fall behind permanently.
What do you propose to get out of this political impotence?
I would like to see the creation of a new elected assembly, responsible for in-depth reflection. This assembly would first be responsible for carrying out in-depth diagnoses on major issues. The idea would be to investigate everything that is wrong, all the problems that we cannot resolve, and to understand why we cannot resolve them. This is rarely done in the National Assembly; reports sometimes remain at the observation stage.
Based on the diagnosis, this new assembly, which I propose to call the “Council of the Republic”, would establish very precise scenarios, options. The objective would be to allow the complications and unforeseen effects of this or that political choice to be detected very early on. This is what the General Planning Commission has long done, between technicians. Here, it would be a question of doing this work with elected officials.
The project you are presenting is very similar to the work of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
No, because I want this new chamber to be elected, even if it does not participate in voting on the law. This is the condition of its legitimacy. This is also the primary function of the representative: to say what is wrong. Everyone deplores the general mediocrity of political personnel; I am convinced that this assembly could attract profiles that are essential to politics and who have distanced themselves from it, intellectuals, personalities above the fray. The public debate would be enriched.
What would be the other attributions of this “Council of the Republic”?
Its third mission, with the diagnoses and scenarios, would be to guarantee good statistics in France. I was a member of parliament long enough to know that published statistics are often a presentation that highlights ministers. In this logic of giving the keys to management to politicians, it is necessary to develop independent and precise statistics on all major subjects.
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