After the presidential election, it’s time for the legislative battle. Since the announcement of Emmanuel Macron’s victory (58.54%) in the second round against Marine Le Pen (41.46%), Sunday April 24, the negotiations have multiplied. On the left, the candidate of La France insoumise (LFI), Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third in the first round, with 21.95% of the vote, calls for a rally around his program for the ballot in the legislative elections, the 12 and June 19.
Discussions, sometimes difficult, have started in this direction with Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV), the French Communist Party (PCF) and the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA). Wednesday, it is with the Socialist Party (PS), so far excluded from the negotiations, that talks must take place. Mr. Mélenchon asks the French to“Elect Prime Minister” and promise a “third round” after his defeat in the presidential election.
On the right, Les Républicains (LR) wanted to reaffirm, on Tuesday, their ” independence “ facing Emmanuel Macron and the risk of poaching their troops by La République en Marche (LRM), as the legislative elections approach. On the far right, the upcoming election also occupied a prominent place in the speeches that followed the announcement of the presidential results on Sunday evening. The candidate of the National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen, said to launch “the great electoral battle of the legislative elections”while Eric Zemmour (Reconquête!), who won 7.07% of the vote in the first round, tried to put pressure on him by pleading for the union and the rallying of « bloc national »which the RN does not want to hear about.
While the opposition parties have their eyes riveted on the next electoral deadline and are busy drawing up their strategy, what is actually at stake during the legislative elections? What prerogatives can they claim? Can this election change the situation? Overview.
What are the stakes of the legislative elections?
On June 12 and 19, 577 deputies will be elected to the National Assembly, each in a constituency (ie, most often a subdivision of a department). This is a poll:
- uninominal (we vote for a deputy and not for a list);
- majority (the first of the candidates who obtains an absolute majority of votes is elected and the others are eliminated, unlike a proportional ballot);
- in two rounds (all candidates who have obtained at least 12.5% of the number of registered voters in the constituency may remain in the second round).
Under the Ve Republic, this method of voting was chosen, from the conception of the Constitution in 1958, because it favors the emergence of a clear majority within the National Assembly, which the executive power needs to govern.
Currently, therefore, a party, movement or coalition must obtain at least 289 deputies to have an absolute majority in the Assembly. In 2017, during the legislative elections, 313 LRM or related deputies were elected to the Palais Bourbon. At the end of the legislature, thanks to disagreements and distancing, they were only 267, but the government was able to rely on other political groups, such as the MoDem (57 deputies), to pass its legal texts.
What is a cohabitation?
This is the situation in which the President of the Republic and the majority in the National Assembly are of opposite political tendencies.
In this hypothesis, the President of the Republic, who has the power to appoint the Prime Minister, is, in fact, forced to appoint to Matignon a personality who has the support of the parliamentary majority. Indeed, according to the 1958 Constitution, the government – and therefore the Prime Minister – is responsible to the National Assembly and must have its support to implement its policy. If this is not the case, we would find ourselves in a situation of institutional deadlock where the government could be overthrown at any time and where no legal text could be adopted. The voters’ choice would also not be respected.
Under the Ve Republic, several episodes of cohabitation have already taken place. So far, all of them have happened when the timing of the presidential election (organized every seven years until 2002), and that of the legislative elections (organized every five years since 1958) did not match. The President of the Republic could lose the majority in the National Assembly during his seven-year term. This is what happened in 1986: the PS failed in the legislative elections and François Mitterrand was forced to appoint Jacques Chirac (RPR) as prime minister. Same configuration in 1993: the socialist president this time appointed Edouard Balladur (RPR) to Matignon. In 1997, Jacques Chirac, elected President of the Republic in 1995, lost the legislative elections which he himself called by ordering the dissolution of the National Assembly. Lionel Jospin (PS) was its prime minister until 2002.
Can Jean-Luc Mélenchon be “elected” Prime Minister?
It is in reality a cohabitation that Jean-Luc Mélenchon is aiming for when he evokes a “third round” of the presidential election where they ask the French to“Elect Prime Minister”. If he cannot be “elected” to this function, as he asserts, since the Prime Minister is appointed by the President, he hopes that his coalition, the Popular Union, – whose enlargement to the other parties of left is still uncertain – will win an absolute majority in the Assembly. In this configuration, Emmanuel Macron should, in fact, appoint to Matignon a personality with the support of the Popular Union, without obligation, however, that it is Mr. Mélenchon.
Under the Ve Republic, what is the distribution of powers between the president and the government?
If the government “determines and conducts the policy of the nation”, according to article 20 of the Constitution, the latter nevertheless makes a significant place for the President of the Republic, in accordance with the wishes of General de Gaulle in 1958. Since 1965, the Head of State has been elected by direct universal suffrage, which gives it strong democratic legitimacy. The president also has major powers: appointment of the head of government, right to dissolve the National Assembly, exceptional powers in the event of a crisis, recourse to a referendum, etc.
To understand the institutional balance of the Ve Republic, two situations should be distinguished:
- When the parliamentary majority and the President of the Republic are of the same political tendency: in this case, the Head of State has a central and decisive role, he decides on the main orientations and the Prime Minister is responsible for applying his program .
- In a period of cohabitation: the role of the Prime Minister regains a major role and the Head of State retains essential prerogatives only in terms of foreign policy (he is in particular in charge of diplomacy and is the head of the armies). In practice, previous cohabitations have shown that the President of the Republic could use certain provisions of the Constitution in a political way. In 1986, when Jacques Chirac was Prime Minister, President François Mitterrand, for example, refused to sign orders on the privatization of public services.
Why haven’t we known cohabitation for twenty years?
The explanation is institutional. In September 2000, the reform of the five-year term was adopted by referendum: the Presidents of the Republic are no longer elected for seven years, but for five years. In 2002, due to the dissolution of the National Assembly in 1997, legislative elections were to be held; they are initially scheduled for March, a few weeks before the presidential election.
Several voices, like that of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, are taking a stand for the inversion of the electoral calendar. The reasoning is as follows: if the legislative elections are held before the presidential one, parliamentarians would have a form of privilege and there would be a risk that the elected president would not be able to carry out his policy. In fine, this solution is adopted. Since 2002, the legislative elections have always been organized after the presidential election.
In the long term, these two successive reforms have drastically reduced the possibilities of cohabitation, the legislative elections following the presidential one having always given victory to the party of the elected president. Some observers have denounced, as a result, a “hyper-presidentialization” of the regime, a fortiori in a political situation which was marked by the domination of the PS and, at the time, of the UMP; two parties that could govern without necessarily having to make alliances. The situation has changed since 2017, with the recomposition of political life around three “blocks”. In 2022 as in 2017, for each party that hopes to have a majority, alliances will be more necessary than ever, and the outcome of the ballot is uncertain.
The challenge of mobilization
Even more since 2002, the presidential election has become the central political battle of French democratic life, even if the abstention rate continues to increase (16% in 2007 against 28% in April 2022; the record being 31% in 1969). These figures are nevertheless much lower than those observed during the legislative elections, which suffer from a growing lack of interest: in 2017, during the first round of the ballot, the abstention rate reached a record 50.3%, against 42 .8% in 2012 and 39.6% in 2007. On June 12 and 19, for each camp, the central issue, beyond alliances, will therefore be that of mobilizing voters.