2023-10-03 05:00:14
The whole of a society cannot be reduced to its Constitution. But nothing in a society can be done with a disconnected Constitution. However, that of the Fifth Republic no longer responds; it turns on itself, it no longer receives the aspirations of society and no longer sends it the appropriate laws. This gap between a Constitution and “its” society defines the “constituent moment”, the moment when a society must grasp itself to say what it is about its living together.
Citizens ask to be involved in the making of laws, but the Constitution gives a monopoly to elected officials; they expect a balanced arrangement of powers, it confuses executive, legislative, judicial, and even media powers; they demand public spaces of deliberation to define the common good, it dissolves the common good through a private exercise of institutions; they want recognition of decentralized power, it organizes Jacobin management of territories.
“As long as ideas and institutions are level, institutions remain”wrote Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), who continued: “When the agreement between institutions and ideas is destroyed, revolutions are inevitable. »
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Today, ideas and institutions are no longer “level”. Institutions are built on the idea that the people can only want, think and act through their representatives and that consequently the elected representatives want for the people and have a monopoly on the making of laws. Which translates into the famous: “It is not the street that governs” and by a Constitution which, with article 49.3, guarantees that it does not govern. Which is further reflected in the decision, on September 28, of the Constitutional Council ruling with six members on the Fillon affair, while the quorum required to decide is seven members, thus revealing the contradiction between the method of appointment and the principle of impartiality.
However, for several years, another idea has emerged, that the people can want, think and act without, alongside, or even against their representatives.
New legitimacy
To bring ideas and institutions back to “level”, a constitutional revision is necessary otherwise a revolution will be inevitable. To do this, it is necessary to take the exact measure of the political situation, which is that of a shaking of the usual sources – universal suffrage and competition – of the social acceptability of decisions.
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