“It is for the President of the Republic to accept his responsibilities by appointing a new President without delay”

2024-07-26 04:00:18

QHowever unpredictable the political situation may be, there are constitutional lines that the Fifth Republic President must not cross. Breaking with the Gaullist desire to free the institutions from the yoke of the parties and the uncertainties of their commitments, Emmanuel Macron has entrusted the delegates, for three weeks already, with the responsibility of bringing order to our political life – with the obvious hope of showing them. indifferent and out of the game as long as they do not succeed, he decided to keep the government that accepted his resignation, by which the voters showed their confidence, so that he could handle the current affairs.

To justify this choice, the Elysée group invokes the unspoken provisions of the constitutional text: if the deadlines for which a government must be chosen are not specified, the president will find himself in the clear power to take all his time when that will suit him or when the political situation requires it. Such an interpretation must be discarded, because it is based on two important – as well as pernicious – errors.

For the first time it was assumed that the result of the election alone would be enough to change the constitution and the political regime: the choice of the Prime Minister would only come to the President when he has a majority in the National Assembly, whether he is friendly to him or not or hostile; it will only belong to the parliaments, if they can agree, when the political forces are divided.

The Fragmentation of the Assembly does not change the rules

This has the unintended effect of a quick merger with the governments of countries close to us in the region. We can already hear those calling for the reform of our institutions for the benefit of the joy of Parliament and the growing comparisons with Belgium, Germany and Italy. Parliamentary traditions, however, are not the same. Some imagine, in our country, the foundation of a government or ephemeral coalitions. The weakness of representatives to change from 2022, even though the Assembly already does not have an absolute majority, calls for great caution in this matter. There are even more companies.

France’s constitutional history is truly different from that of our neighbors. Designed from the beginning to address the absence of several stable legislatures, the 1958 constitution set out the organization of governments in a simple manner. Because we want to get rid of the controversial character of the former Republic, the responsibility for choosing the Prime Minister falls only on the President: his choice is only subject, on the part of the representatives, to ad hoc management. He is then free to entrust the Prime Minister with the task of building a government capable of ensuring sufficient parliamentary support.

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