The right is hungover. The Constitutional Council censored more than a third of the immigration bill on Thursday, mainly the articles imposed by LR on the government during parliamentary negotiations. Its leaders mock a democratic “hold-up” and attack the Sages, guilty of having hindered popular sovereignty. The LR deputy for Lot Aurélien Pradié castigates the “cynicism” of Emmanuel Macron, who dissociated himself from part of the text after having dubbed it. The law has already been promulgated by the president, and published in the Official Journal this Saturday, January 27.
L’Express: The Constitutional Council censored more than a third of the immigration bill on Thursday. How do you react to this decision?
Aurélien Pradié: None of the measures we defended remain in the immigration bill. We are facing a scam against democracy. But the Constitutional Council is not the one responsible for the scam, it is the one which reveals it. I will not attack this body, which judged in law. The constitutional reform that we seek would not have changed anything in his decision. He judged the legislative cavaliers and did not sanction the measures in light of the substantive values enshrined in our Constitution. The gravity of the moment requires us not to make the wrong target.
The real question is who participated in this scam. Is it general naivety in the “negotiation” with the government or the cynicism of Emmanuel Macron? In my opinion, Emmanuel Macron premeditated and organized the democratic scam. This episode does terrible harm to the country and will, without a doubt, leave its mark. No one can believe anymore in the idea that democracy works and that we, parliamentarians, can act.
Almost all of the censored provisions were imposed by the right on the executive. Have you sinned through legal incompetence?
Everyone has some responsibility. This text was poorly designed with regard to the requirements of parliamentary democracy. It would have required resuming, on a new basis, the legislative work after the motion to reject. No one played their role as filter. Before the Senate, the Minister of the Interior should have filtered the measures to protect himself from constitutional censure. Worse, after the vote, the government sent a memorandum to the Constitutional Council in which it made sure to sabotage the measures that we had imposed and which it had claimed to support before the national representation. We must assess the seriousness of the Macronist maneuver, against the people and their representatives.
Above all, the executive wanted a compromise to be reached so that a text could be adopted…
He showed his irresponsibility and duplicity. In this case, political tactics prevailed over democratic rules. Emmanuel Macron is a prince who has fun with democracy, like a child with his toys. For him, display takes precedence over the interest of the nation. This is very serious. All of this endangers our institutions.
But what is the right’s share of responsibility?
I have never been naive with this government. I voted for the motion of censure on the pension reform because I have no confidence in him. We must always prefer the clarity of a public debate and a vote by the Assembly to a political deal. Now I can’t imagine that a single member of the Republicans could believe in the words of the President of the Republic. This is why I do not want a new government text on immigration, it would be of no use and would be another trap to waste time and deceive the French. Only direct feedback to the people will provide an answer.
Was LR management naive?
I do not know. I wish so, because I prefer naivety to cynicism. But ultimately, who can blame us for wanting to serve the best interests of the country and for believing that this was possible? We first thought of the French.
You voted for a motion to reject the immigration text. This political coup reduced the parliamentary negotiation to a CMP lasting a few hours. This has affected the quality of your parliamentary work. Is this not the original cause of this legal rout?
The motion to dismiss is not the original cause of this situation. All the filters of the parliamentary process have been swept aside. In this affair, everyone wanted to save a political display. Everyone wanted to get a victory. Our parliamentary democracy process is demanding. But when we give in to the ease of display, we are caught by the patrol.
Éric Ciotti evokes a “democratic hold-up”, Laurent Wauquiez castigates a “legal coup d’état”, François-Xavier Bellamy mocks the “hypocrisy” of the Constitutional Council. Isn’t the right venturing onto a slippery slope by charging this institution?
This is the trap that Emmanuel Macron sets for us. He wants to push us into the camp of those who have always cast opprobrium on the constitutional judge: Mélenchon, Le Pen and even François Mitterrand at the time when he fought General de Gaulle and contested the existence of the Fifth Republic. This camp is not that of the Gaullists. It never was and must not become so.
This decision damages democracy and ruins political trust. I understand the anger as the country can no longer wait. But the political word, that of the Gaullists, must be precise if it wants to be credible. I do not believe that the Constitutional Council has assumed a political role. The mood pushes us to pounce on him because we often want more at the one who reveals the illness than at the one who inoculates it. The scammer is Emmanuel Macron.
So you are not contesting the decision on the merits?
The articles in question were not censored on the merits but on the assessment of a formal defect. That of “parliamentary rider”. Laying the responsibility on the Constitutional Council would amount to exonerating Emmanuel Macron from his political responsibility. The head of state sets a political trap for us into which we must not fall.
If we follow your reasoning, this is already the case…
I won’t fall for it. We cannot be a government party and pillory the constitutional judge.
Laurent Wauquiez launches a proposal to Parisian. That Parliament can have the last word “when a supreme court censures a law”. Do you approve?
I am attached to the balance of the Fifth Republic. Laurent Wauquiez too, I know it. These balances provide that the constitutional judge has the last word on certain subjects. It is up to politicians not to cede their own prerogatives and to go to the people directly when there is an obstacle. Broadening the scope of the referendum and modernizing its practice is a central key for the future.
In the right-wing discourse, the Constitutional Council is mainly seen as an obstacle, and not as a lookout. Its contribution to the protection of individual rights seems erased….
The problem is not the weight gained by the Constitutional Council, but the loss of that of politics. This is also the second time that the President of the Republic has publicly attempted to exploit the Council by referring it to arbitration that he himself does not want to take on. He did it with pensions and he is doing it with immigration. Politics has abandoned a crucial part of its prerogatives. So when MPs tolerate 49.3 repeatedly. So when we give in to the ease of a CMP where only a few senators and deputies decide on a law. Ditto when we accept that parliamentary negotiations take place far from the sight of the National Assembly, during meetings between political parties and government.
You are talking about a democratic scam. How to get out?
The slow habituation to a degraded democracy has become the poison of our country. In addition, Emmanuel Macron abuses a distortion of bicameralism. By calculation. The government overplayed the role of the Senate and circumvented the role of the Assembly. Each Chamber, however, has an important and different mission: the Senate represents the territories and their essential role. It is up to the National Assembly to carry the word of the people. The Law needs both legitimacy. If one is missing, the law is weak and is exposed to all types of censure, including that of the constitutional judge. The President of the Republic has forgotten his crucial role as guarantor of the Institutions. By playing with them, he weakens them all. A conflict of legitimacy is formed between the government, the Senate, the Assembly, the CMP, the constitutional judge and the people. Only the people can cut this knot. Either by referendum or by a new electoral meeting.
My political friends are right to call for a referendum not only to give us the means to take back control of migration policy but also to rebuild a vital democratic pact. We must come back to the people, and submit to their decision. Emmanuel Macron refuses to do so: he pretended to have an absolute majority in the Assembly after the failure of the legislative elections. This is the result. Whoever claims to become President of the Republic tomorrow will be the one who initiates a democratic rebuilding with the people. The Gaullists must make powerful proposals to rebuild the edifice of the Fifth Republic. The urgency of the democratic crisis is before our eyes.
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