Zhang Yutao
On the evening of June 19, shortly after the second round of voting in France's legislative elections ended, newly appointed Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne held a press conference on the election results. She said at a news conference, "This is an outcome that was never expected... Never before in the history of the Fifth Republic has such a situation occurred in the National Assembly". She cautioned that such a situation would create "new dangers to our country" Although the final results had not yet been released at the time, it was determined based on preliminary estimates and export poll data alone that the electoral coalition supporting President Emmanuel Macron was "together!" （Ensemble！ "There will be no absolute majority in Parliament. Such a situation, although not the first time it has occurred in France, is still very rare in the history of the Fifth Republic.
According to the final result, Macron and his supporters formed an electoral coalition "Ensemble!" won only 250 seats, a gap of nearly 40 seats from the parliament's absolute majority (289 seats). And his main rivals, whether it's Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Rassemblement National, whose leadership is competing for the presidency in the second round of the presidential election, or Jean-Luc, the leader of the far-left party La France insoumise, who turned his sights to legislative elections even before the presidential election is over Mélenchon), neither of them has been able to fully profit from such a situation. The far right, led by the former, has only 89 seats in parliament, while the latter has won only 133 seats despite uniting almost all of France's left-wing parties. In short, through this vote, France elected a National Assembly that no party alone could decide.
The reason why this situation constitutes a "crisis" to some extent is that even for the French Fifth Republic, which has experienced three "cohabitations" (in French, "cohabitation", that is, the parliamentary majority and the president belong to two different parties, three times in history in France, in 1986-1988 under President Mitterrand, 1993-1995 and 1997-2002 under President Chirac. The absence of a clear majority in Parliament remains very rare. This can also explain Prime Minister Borny's concerns to some extent: there are very few experiences she can refer to; Coupled with the fact that no party in Parliament has an absolute majority, the process of passing bills will become incomparably difficult. After all, even in the period of "co-governance", a single party in Parliament can still have an absolute majority.
Whether it is "left-right co-governance" or the lack of an absolute majority in the National Assembly in the current situation, these situations are mainly the cause of concern among politicians because both situations challenge the logic of governance designed by the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic.
Start with the Fifth Republic
Charles De Gaulles, the founder of the French Fifth Republic, after experiencing two parliamentary regimes of the Third and Fourth Republics, knew that parliamentary regimes were prone to instability. Such shortcomings left France leaderless at the beginning of World War II, so much so that France, which claimed to have the first continental Army, surrendered soon after the formal german invasion; And even in post-war peacetime, under the Fourth Republic, due to the mutual strife and prevarication between parties, it led to inefficiency and political instability. As the Algerian national liberation movement grew and the contradictions between colonial and decolonialists between the government grew, the military coup crisis of 1958 was the last straw that toppling the parliamentary Fourth Republic.
Thus, when de Gaulle was entrusted with the constitution of the Fifth Republic, he set the goal of strengthening the executive power of the President and the government he led. And although parliaments under the Fifth Republic system still have the power to initiate motions of no confidence in the government, because parliamentary majorities tend to have the same affiliation as the presidential party, they are difficult to pass in the absence of sufficient votes. Therefore, invisibly, the Constitution of the Fifth Republic "hid" the ballot of no confidence, the most powerful weapon in the game between legislative power and executive power.
De gaulle
Of course, this did not mean that de Gaulle used the opportunity he could design a new constitution to open the way for himself to embark on a career as a dictator, after all, the political system of the Fifth Republic was still nominally a semi-presidential system. At the beginning of the Establishment of the Fifth Republic, the President served a term of seven years, while the members of the National Assembly served a term of five years. This gap in term length can be seen in part as a test of trust in the president and the government he leads: if the people are not satisfied with the president's governance, they can use their votes to express their dissatisfaction in the next legislative election before the end of the presidency.
Although de Gaulle's idea of testing public opinion by setting up a "mid-term vote" was not made clear by any constitutional provisions, de Gaulle himself always followed this logic during his time in power, and he repeatedly used referendums as a means of testing public opinion. Through the referendum, de Gaulle not only involved ordinary citizens directly in political decision-making, but also used the referendum as a way to establish direct communication with the people, further consolidating support. In 1962, de Gaulle used a referendum to bypass parliament and establish the method of presidential election stipulated in the constitution as universal suffrage.
But for the founding president of the Fifth Republic, success is also a referendum, and defeat is also a referendum. After the "May Storm" of 1968, because his proposed reform plan was not approved in the referendum, he believed that the French no longer recognized him, so he voluntarily resigned from the presidency and completely left French politics to return to idyllic life. It's just that his successors no longer follow this logic.
The center of power returns to the president
François Mitterrand, the president of the leftist Socialist Party who took office in 1981, failed to win a parliamentary majority in legislative elections five years after taking office. Nevertheless, he chose not to resign, but chose to appoint Jacques Chirac, a politician from the right-wing "Rassemblement pour la République", as prime minister, avoiding the outcome of his resignation and opening the first period of co-governance in the history of the Fifth Republic. After the election results came out, Mitterrand said that he would govern in accordance with the provisions of the constitution and used the political slogan "The constitution, only the constitution, the constitution all" to show his support for the constitution.
During this period, parliament became the de facto political centre. The President is in a relatively weak position in the face of a parliamentary majority, as well as a government backed by a majority. Although the President can use his power to refuse to sign decrees proposed by some governments, eventually the government can still govern through the normal legislative process through a parliamentary vote. This "left-right co-rule" situation occurred twice until 2002, when France amended its constitution again.
In the new century, after about three co-governances, the French political circles finally reached a consensus and resolved to get rid of this situation and avoid the recurrence of co-governance. So in 2002, France amended its constitution again to shorten the term of office of the French president to 5 years, and to adjust the election of members of the National Assembly, that is, the time of the legislative election, to the presidential election. On the one hand, this constitutional reform has unified the term of office of the members of the National Assembly and the presidency by shortening the presidential term, ensuring that the presidential election is in line with the rhythm of the legislative election; The timing is that the president who wins the presidential election can enjoy the heat of the presidential election as much as possible and win the parliamentary majority with one stroke. Thanks to this constitutional amendment, the president can enjoy the support of his own party in parliament for the 20 years from 2002 to 2022 and govern smoothly. The consequence of this, of course, is that the president has undoubtedly become the center of power and the parliament has gradually become marginalized.
Pinch left and right
However, this situation of monopoly of administrative power on one side has not been sustained. Looking back at the legislative election, there are several reasons for the defeat of Macron and his party.
First, Macron faces a strong left-right squeeze in this legislative election. Although Mei Langxiong was sorry to get out early with a third-place result in the first round of the presidential election, before the second round of voting in the presidential election, he announced on television that he hoped to end the situation of left division and unite the political forces of the left in order to achieve a breakthrough in the legislative election. The call won over left-wing political forces including the Parti socialiste, Europe-Écologie Les Verts, and the Parti socialiste français. In the newly formed electoral coalition "Nouvelle union populaire écologique et sociale" (Nupes), Mei Langxiong used his advantage in the presidential election compared to other political party candidates, and naturally made himself the leader of the alliance, while at the same time making most of the measures in his campaign platform a common platform of the alliance.
Macron, who had to lean left in the face of the threat of far-right candidate Le Pen in the second round of the presidential election, clearly has no more room for activity in the face of the menacing left. Not to mention that the candidates of Le Pen's party also have a clear advantage in many constituencies at the same time. Macron, who faces a left-right pinch, has limited operating space.
In addition, this vote also has a clear anti-Macron feature. If macron could still use the "Front républicain" to resist the rise of far-right forces to mobilize voters in the second round of the presidential election, by the time of the legislative election, the dissatisfaction with macron's authoritarian and authoritarian style of the "Jupiter-style president" during his first term turned into a vote flowing to the left-wing electoral coalition and the far-right "national assembly". In other words, for a section of the electorate, if the voting logic in the second round of the presidential election is that one vote is not given to Le Pen, in the legislative election, it is the party that does not vote for Macron. After all, if other parties are strong enough in Parliament, it will certainly create obvious resistance to Macron's governance.
On April 24, 2022, local time, In Paris, France, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a victory speech at champ de Mars in Paris, and supporters responded positively at the scene.
In the end, the defeat was also inseparable from Macron's own campaign strategy choices. Macron hopes in the legislative election can replicate the electoral strategy of the previous presidential election to run without campaigning. After his re-election success, he did not take the initiative to contribute to his own party campaign, but continued to appear in international occasions with the help of his presidency. It was only a week before the second round of elections that he made a brief speech on the tarmac of his plane calling on the French people to give him a "clear parliamentary majority." This attitude once again reinforced his image as an impersonal president. His move to Kiev to meet with the Ukrainian president on the eve of the second round of elections also failed to add points to his party's elections.
To make matters worse, there have been many scandals in the Borne government since the victory. Whether it was the delay in the start of the match due to insufficient on-site preparation and improper command during the reception of the Champions League final, and the fact that many British fans were ultimately unable to enter the stadium to watch the game, or the minister of disability affairs Damien Abad was accused of sexual assault by multiple women, these accidents are invisibly further overdrawing Macron's support.
hanging in the balance
All this has led to the current absence of a clear majority in Parliament. For Prime Minister Borne, who is mainly responsible for governance, without the support of the majority, everything will only be more difficult. One of the few lessons she could refer to was her experience in governance between 1988 and 1993. Although there was experience for her, she would face more limitations than she did at the time.
Mitterrand, who had just been re-elected in 1986, decided to dissolve it early that year in order to get rid of the right-wing control of parliament. But left-wing voters, out of opposition to Mitterrand's strategy of moving closer to the centre, and the appointment of center-left Prime Minister Michel Rocard, failed to turn one side toward the Socialist Party. As a result, the Socialist Party and its allies won only 275 of the 577 seats, and although this time the Socialist Party avoided the majority from falling into the hands of the right, it still faced a constrained fate.
As one of the important means for the government to check and balance parliament, the government can force the passage of some bills with its own credit. During this phase, Michel Rocca, who served as Prime Minister from 1988 to 1991, used such tactics 28 times in a three-year period to force the passage of bills, ensuring that his Government's will to reform could be passed.
But times have changed, and a 2008 constitutional amendment under President Sarkozy imposed more restrictions on the way bills were forcibly passed. After the amendment of the Constitution, the government can only use it once except for the draft annual budget and the draft annual budget of the social insurance system. For Macron, who hopes to advance the controversial reforms such as retirement reforms as soon as possible and raise unemployment insurance claim standards, this restriction will have a great impact on his reform process. Under such adverse conditions, the formation of a solid government team is extremely important for the official opening of the five-year term.
"Action Government"
The formation of a "government of action" is precisely the slogan and policy put forward by the Prime Minister in response to the many unfavorable conditions after the legislative elections. The re-establishment of the Government after legislative elections is both a historical tradition under the republican form of government and out of respect for the will of the people as demonstrated by the legislative elections. But for Macron, this government restructuring also has the consideration of focusing on the whole team and finding a breakthrough for the smooth development of his tenure.
This government restructuring also has a practical need. Three ministers who represented Macron's party in the legislative election: Brigitte Bourguignon, minister of health and prevention, Amélie de Montchalin, minister of ecological transformation and regional solidarity, and Justine Benin, secretary of state for maritime affairs, will leave the government after failing to win the election in their respective constituencies. In addition, Damien Abad, minister of disability affairs accused of sexual assault, although not formally convicted by the court, will also be stripped from the government at the repeated insistence of Prime Minister Bolney to avoid affecting public trust in the government. In addition, the vacancies left by former Foreign Minister Yaël Braun-Pivet after his election as Speaker of the National Assembly need to be further replenished.
The restructuring also has clear political considerations. Since Macron has made clear in his previous televised speeches that he will not recruit members of the opposition to form a coalition government, one of the most important purposes of this government restructuring is to further unite allies through new appointments and maintain the unity of the relative majority in parliament as firmly as possible. Macron also took care of his two key allies, François Bayrou, and former Prime Minister Eduard Phillipe, in his selection. The parties led by the two respectively, the Prospect Party and the Democracy Movement, are important components of Macron's majority in parliament. Four of the former's henchmen entered the government, and two of the latter's cronies became cabinet members.
On July 4, 2022, local time, macron cabinet members of the new government took a group photo.
In this appointment, Macron once again embodied the right-leaning characteristics, appointing a number of ministers from the right-wing Republican Party, and Bruno Le Maire, the minister of economy who was from the right and has been dedicated to assisting Macron, and the minister of the interior, Gérald Darmanin, have gained more important powers through restructuring and reshuffling, and their influence can reach the prime minister.
Governance priorities
Referring to Macron's statement in an interview with the media after the Celebration of France's National Day, his governance priorities in the new term have a strong continuity with the first term. This is not only reflected in the fact that he will continue to promote the reforms that he promised during his first term, especially the reform of the pension system with the extension of the retirement age as the main measure, further reduce the unemployment rate in French society to achieve full employment, and further stimulate the economy by reducing the tax burden on enterprises and individuals. At the same time, he promised to respond further to the problems that emerged in his first term, especially at the end of the term, inflation and the energy and food crises brought about by the outbreak of the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the accelerated pace of "ecological transformation" promised to attract leftist voters during the re-election campaign. In order to achieve the above goals, it is necessary to involve further policy support at the national level, which explains the two directions of "plan" and "sovereignty" embodied in the titles of new government members.
In terms of ministerial title, Le Maire, as minister of economy, will not only be responsible for the economic and financial aspects of the previous subdivision, but also bring economic sovereignty and digital sovereignty into the jurisdiction. After the global epidemic of the new crown epidemic and the Russo-Ukrainian war, whether it is France's inability to produce masks on its own, or the drawbacks caused by the disrupted supply chain caused by the epidemic, macron is willing to elevate economic sovereignty to a more important position. In terms of the digital economy, in addition to the digital sovereignty issues that have arisen with the further development of the digital economy and the expansion of digital giants in China and the United States, it is also one of the undoubted priorities for a president like Macron who attaches great importance to emerging technologies and economic models. The energy and food crises triggered by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict provide an argument for him to give higher priority to food and energy sovereignty, and he has also appointed cabinet members to be responsible for food and energy sovereignty issues respectively.
The most obvious manifestation of the "plan" is the full name of the prime minister's office. According to the announcement announcing the formation of the government, Borny's full title is "Prime Minister, directly in charge of ecological and energy planning". This means that as the head of government, Borne is not only responsible for the coordination of government affairs, but also directly responsible for the planning of ecological and energy transition. Another position, Minister of Labour, was also changed to "Minister of Labour, Full Employment and Integration". The inclusion of full employment in the minister's competence as a goal pursued by the government shows the importance macron attaches to it.
End
To be sure, Macron will no longer be able to use an absolute majority in parliament to arbitrarily pass reforms that he believes should be undertaken. In the face of this proportional representative parliament elected through two rounds of majority elections, Macron needs to do more than just maintain morale, but also need to listen to the opinions of other parties in the parliament and achieve the greatest common denominator in the consultation. After all, from France's neighbors, whether in Germany or Italy, it is not uncommon for multiple parties to rule together in parliament. For Macron, a president who has always been "Jupiter", the moment has just come to test his political experience.
Editor-in-Charge: Fan Zhu
Proofreader: Yijia Xu