The years go by, and there are reflexes that remain with Emmanuel Macron. At the start of 2020, the Court of Auditors lost its mind. Its president Didier Migaud took off, heading for the High Authority for Transparency in Political Life. No one is surprised, this change had been planned for a year. However, the position remains vacant for months. The jurisdiction is even forced to postpone the publication of its traditional annual report by a few days. This vacancy suits Emmanuel Macron well, who is taking his time to find a successor to the socialist. He is asking for “a woman, from an immigrant background, a very good analyst”, reports journalist Corinne Lhaïk in Burglar President (Fayard, 2020). The president then wants to “break the system”, in his own words. To hell with clocks, he is “looking for the perfect gesture”, narrates the journalist.
Nothing has changed. The head of state is playing with everything, everyone and time. The throes of Jupiterian presidentialism. His last two “coups” have added to the fog, if not to the political chaos. In June, he opened, with the dissolution, an institutional crisis in a Constitution that has hardly known any, and which was modeled in such a way as to avoid them. Here is the 5th hampered, which looks a little more like the 4th, and where the political parties have regained strength, where none of the three blocs of the National Assembly can govern freely. In July, the same Emmanuel is amused by this political paralysis, and calls for an “Olympic truce”.
“When he wants, who he wants”
Sport transcending the Constitution. His resigning government, responsible for current affairs, passes the dishes. And since he has resigned, Parliament no longer has the power to censure him. Add to that his refusal to appoint a cohabitation Prime Minister. A useless government, a non-existent Prime Minister, and a Parliament that is quite incapable, some would say blocked. “Article 8, paragraph 1 of the Constitution merely provides that the President of the Republic appoints the Prime Minister, without further details, that is to say, prosaically: when he wants, who he wants”, explains Bertrand-Léo Combrade, professor of public law at the University of Poitiers, in an article in World. Emmanuel Macron, alone on stage, playing on the absolutism that the function grants him.
“The outgoing majority lost this election,” he admitted on Tuesday, July 23, on France 2. But as soon as the admission was made, he outlined the contours of this ideal government. He advocated a grand coalition of “republican forces” that had blocked the far right at the polls. “All the forces, once again, that worked together in the second round must collectively do the same,” he urged in his interview. As if the republican front were a government program. He already had the program in mind. He argued for “more firmness, more security and more justice, more simplicity and a better living from one’s work.”
Sphynx
Does he still believe he can win, against all odds? Against the habitus of the Constitution, what does it matter that he has lost two elections, one after the other? The European elections on June 9 and then the early legislative elections on July 7. He is trying to bounce back, like François Mitterrand in his time. On March 2, 1986, on the eve of the legislative elections that he knows he has lost, François Mitterrand invites himself onto the set of TF1 star Yves Morousie. To the right of Jacques Chirac, not yet victorious but already greedy, the then president puts things in perspective: “No one will appoint the Prime Minister in my place, believe me! […] We do not impose conditions on the President of the Republic.”
But not everyone can be a sphinx… Emmanuel Macron may well hammer home that “no one has won”, but he is hardly master of the political situation. The left-wing coalition that came out on top in the hemicycle, and has even more recovered a number of key positions in the Assembly, has every legitimacy in demanding the post of Prime Minister, even though it wants a “small-time” government. This matters little to Emmanuel Macron. On France 2, he brushed aside the demands of the New Popular Front. He opts for a personal reading of the verdict of the ballot boxes. The left is certainly in the lead in seats, but too far from an absolute majority to demand Matignon. It is therefore no.
Thanks but no thanks
Who still listens to this president who has been so devalued? The left continues to demand what is owed to them when the right does not want to hear about an alliance. It remains at a distance from a power that is ending in order to embody the alternation in 2027. Laurent Wauquiez has just proposed a “legislative pact”, with real content more modest than its ambitious title: a series of measures that the right commits to vote for if the new government were to present them to the Assembly. In reality, this is the work of any parliamentary opposition group. “Laurent reaffirms a classic line with new words”, smiles a loyalist.
The left is no more enthusiastic. The presidential camp has bet on the disintegration of the New Popular Front, an electoral alliance corrupted by strategic and ideological disagreements. Its hypothetical implosion would not automatically throw the “moderate socialists” – as the established formula has it – into the arms of the central bloc. Attempts to make contact have indeed been made, as L’Express reported recently, but the president is facing a wall that is still standing. “The socialist deputies are not waiting for phone calls from those who lost the elections. They want the respect of the voters, that is to say the appointment of Lucie Castets to Matignon”, replies Boris Vallaud, the leader of the socialist deputies. The union of the left is holding, all the more so now that it has its candidate for the post of Prime Minister: Castets, an ENA graduate, who came from the socialist ranks and whom La France Insoumise supports. Last October, the senior civil servant appeared at the launch meeting of Place Publique, Raphaël Glucksmann’s movement.
Invisible pressure
The fact remains that Emmanuel Macron has not given up his supreme constitutional weapon: the dissolution of the National Assembly, which he could pronounce in a year in the event of a deadlock. Several Macronists believe that this threat of a return to the polls prevents any coalition. It imprisons the deputies in their respective electoral sociologies, and slows down their initiatives. “Giving up on any dissolution would reintroduce tension and encourage a coalition,” notes a minister. “The deputies have no interest in doing so today. If we start a campaign again in a year and I have put forward the idea of an alliance with the left, the voters will cut my head off.”
Otherwise, the situation freezes. The small steps towards the other are full of ambiguity and caution. We mimic the spirit of responsibility to avoid playing the bad role. We hardly go any further so as not to “compromise” ourselves. Time flies, each hour that passes increases the pressure on the head of state. An invisible pressure, masked by the gigantism of the Olympic Games. The maintenance of the current executive cannot be prolonged. It is already too late for the hour of choice.
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