A faithful among the faithful. Emmanuel Macron proposed this Monday, February 10, to appoint the ex-president of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand as president of the Constitutional Council to replace Laurent Fabius, the Elysée announced in a press release.
The president of the Senate Gérard Larcher appointed him the senator Les Républicains Philippe Bas as a member of the Council, while the president of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet appointed the ex-deputy MoDem and former magistrate Laurence Vichnievsky, according to press releases distinct from their institutions. These three names must be validated, after hearing on February 19, by the law commissions of the Parliament.
A very important appointment
For the former president of the National Assembly, this delicate test of parliamentary hearings promises to be very uncertain in the current political context. Because if the names of Philippe Bas and Laurence Vichnievsky must also be approved respectively by the Senate and the National Assembly, it is indeed the presidential choice which covers the most issues. Emmanuel Macron’s decision appears as a first inheritance for the Head of State, since the future president of the Constitutional Council will be in post until 2034, well after the end of his own lease at the Élysée.
This appointment is all the more sensitive since nobody in the French political class no longer ventures to exclude the possibility of the accession to power of Marine Le Pen in the coming years.
However, the national rally – like Laurent Wauquiez’s right – has regularly shown itself critically of the constitutional judge. And the RN on immigration sometimes envisages a revision of the fundamental law via the controversial procedure of article 11. “Basically, it is necessary to resist a change of diet. It is not neutral “Explains a source available to appointments.
“Recycling”
The choice by Emmanuel Macron of a loved one, first in the rope of his accession to power, who kept the president’s ear despite an apparent withdrawal from political life – he created in 2022 his consulting company – arouses criticisms so much in the political class only among lawyers. “This choice will undoubtedly weaken the legitimacy of an institution which will take on considerable importance, given the political circumstances,” said Communist Senator Pierre Ouzoulias on X.
The profile of Richard Ferrand “does not integrate either in a requirement of technical competence or in an impartiality, objective as subjective, placing it above political contingencies”, consider academics Dominique Chagnollaud and Jules Lepoutre in a in the newspaper The world.
Sunday, February 9, the spokesperson for the RN Edwige Diaz had denounced on France 3 “The world of the releturing and recycling of the beaten”, recalling that Richard Ferrand, president of the outgoing assembly, had been beaten in the legislative elections of 2022 in the Finistère. For their part, the communist deputies have tabled a bill to supervise the appointments to the Council. It is necessary to “put an end to the nominations which make controversial and weaken it”, they write.
Richard Ferrand “still checks a lot of boxes. Former president of the Assembly, like (Jean-Louis) Debré, like Fabius. Close to the president, as is generally. Politics, but rather out of the game”, retorts a chief group. “I do not see what could oppose that it is appointed,” said this Sunday on Radio J The president of the centrist group in the Senate, Hervé Marseille.
In the assembly on February 19
Once announced, the three personalities will have to go from parliamentary hearing. These are scheduled for February 19. Laurence Vichnievsky will be heard by the Law Commission of the Palais Bourbon, Philippe Bas by that of the Luxembourg Palace. Damoclès sword: their candidacy will be failed if three fifths of the commission agents oppose it.
Richard Ferrand will have to convince in the two chambers, an arduous mission in the Assembly where the Macronist camp is far from majority.
Prudent, Richard Ferrand has thus consulted several parliamentary group leaders and prepares these hearings. “He was still a little damaged by controversies,” said a deputy, recalling the affair of the mutuals of Brittany who had cost him his place in government in 2017, and for which he obtained a dismissal for the benefit of prescription. “It is the candidate of the President of the Republic, in the current context, it is already a difficulty,” said a macronist deputy, pessimistic about the outcome of the vote.