To do so was perhaps a first stupidity, to undo it would be a second, bigger one. That is to say if the subject is cursed. During the revision of 2008, article 6 of the Constitution is modified: “No one can exercise more than two mandates [présidentiels] consecutive.” But it is impossible today to question the merits of the measure. The proof by Richard Ferrand.
The former President of the National Assembly, who is among those closest to Emmanuel Macron, declares in Le Figaro this Monday: “Personally, I regret everything that restricts the free expression of popular sovereignty. The limitation of the presidential mandate in time, the non-accumulation of mandates, etc. All this corsets our public life in rules that limit the free choice of citizens […]. let’s change it all […].” Immediately, it is the hallali, which leads Richard Ferrand to specify in a tweet that he does not recommend “modifying the Constitution for the presidential election of 2027” – the retroactivity of the laws does not exist besides.
Already in 2008, the measure was challenged. It is also no coincidence that the Balladur commission for the modernization of institutions set up in July 2007 by Nicolas Sarkozy in the wake of his election does not propose it. Within it, a large majority is against such a limitation, for a historical reason – Roosevelt served four terms and that did not prevent him from winning the war… – and for a democratic reason – it is a strong limitation voter sovereignty.
“The only elected official on whom this is imposed is my apple”
A man wants more than anything to limit the number of terms, and as he is President of the Republic, he wins his case. “The time we spend lasting, we don’t spend it acting”, Nicolas Sarkozy used to explain then. Who however ensures that the term “consecutive” appears in the new version, we must not insult the future. On October 12, at the Institut de France, he returned to the question: “I readily admit that it is really a subject of debate, I do not claim to have the truth on it.” He willingly cites the example of Margaret Thatcher, 11 years and six months at 10 Downing Street, to explain that “after ten years, we no longer hear”. “Power is dangerous, you have to put a limit, it’s a protection”, added the former head of state, who does not believe in the famous theory of the “lame duck”, as we say in the United States (during his second term, an American president often watches helplessly as his political influence gradually diminishes). For Nicolas Sarkozy, “if your authority is undermined, it is because you are fragile.”
Emmanuel Macron hates article 6 of the Constitution as it is now written. From 2018, a year after his accession to the Elysée, he let go in front of visitors: “The only elected official on whom this is imposed is my apple.” In 2027 he will be 49 years old and he who loves nothing until freedom is tied up. “The psychological disorder that we saw in him after his re-election is because of this situation prohibiting him from representing himself”, advances one of his supporters, who completes: “A president who can no longer to represent may have courage, but he is no longer a warlord, everyone is watching for signs of the decline of his influence.
The psychodrama of the last few hours around the words of Richard Ferrand proves it: “When politicians institute a bad rule, it becomes religiously good because they forbid themselves to go back on it”, as a constitutionalist put it. We are there.