The appointment of Richard Ferrand as president of the Constitutional Council could cause tremors.
Will Richard Ferrand take the lead of the Constitutional Council in a few weeks? This relative of Emmanuel Macron has been campaigning for weeks to convince elected officials of the laws of the Assembly and the Senate that he is the appropriate person for the position. Parliamentarians must in fact validate in March the choice of Emmanuel Macron, who officially proposes a candidate for the presidency of this council of wise men.
As a reminder, the Constitutional Council was instituted by the constitution of the Ve Republic, dated October 4, 1958. “Regulator of the functioning of public authorities and jurisdiction with various skills, it is in particular the burden of the compliance control of the law to the Constitution”, specifies the official website of the institution. But this year, the appointment of the president of the Constitutional Council could have a more political scope than usual, in particular in connection with the National Rally.
A coincidence of calendar makes this appointment important for the RN. One of the first subjects concerning the Constitutional Council will be about the application of ineligibility provisionally. A question that interests particularly Marine Le Penbeing awaiting the court decision following his trial of parliamentary assistants of the European Parliament.
Ferrand in the face of the constitutionality of Le Pen’s ineligibility
In reality, and to fully understand what is played out, Richard Ferrand will have to deal with the question of the constitutionality of the ineligibility or not of Marine Le Pen, linked to the execution of his sentence. The prosecutor requested against him, in the case of the fictitious jobs of the parliamentary assistants of the RN, a sentence of ineligibility with provisional execution. In other words, if the judge follows the requisition, this sentence would be effective, despite an appeal: she would be prevented from presenting herself during the next presidential election.
But can the chief of the deputies of the RN be prevented from presenting himself in 2027 when his sentence of ineligibility is not final? Because indeed, if the Paris court follows the prosecution’s requisitions and condemns Marine Le Pen to an ineligibility sentence, this sentence can still be canceled on appeal. As for any justiciable. Does this unanswered ineligibility also worth for a presidential candidate?
Richard Ferrand, who will have to decide on this point, could therefore have in their hands one of the keys to the 2027 election. If the Constitutional Council considers that this provisional execution goes against a constitutional principle and prevents a political party from proposing His candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Marine Le Pen will be able to present herself.
But “if the council chaired by Ferrand gives a favorable response (to the validity of the provisional execution editor’s note), the oppositions will say: ‘The sherpa of Macron wants to prevent Marine Le Pen from presenting himself’, even if it would be founded in right “, announces the constitutionalist Benjamin Morel in the columns of the world, this Monday, February 10. “This choice will undoubtedly weaken the legitimacy of an institution which will gain considerable importance, given the political circumstances,” said Senator Pierre Ouzoulias on the social network X.
Of course, if the judges do not condemn Marine Le Pen to this penalty of ineligibility, the president of the Constitutional Council will not be able to weigh on the choice of the RN deputy to appear. Sunday, February 9, the spokesperson for the RN Edwige Diaz denounced at the microphone of France 3 a “world of the revival and recycling of the beaten”, recalling in passing that Richard Ferrand had been beaten in the legislative elections of 2022 in Finistère.