Should France exit the Fifth Republic?

The approval of the pension reform wanted by French President Emmanuel Macron, obtained in the midst of strikes and protests through a constitutional article that avoided the vote of parliament, has helped to create a social crisis in France that will be difficult to overcome in the short term. And it has also opened what according to some commentators and politicians would be a “crisis of democracy”, which could put an end to the Fifth Republic and start a new constituent process that will lead to the overcoming of the current semi-presidential model. In recent weeks, in fact, “Down with the Fifth Republic” has been one of the slogans most used by the millions of demonstrators who took part in the protests.

The French Fifth Republic, which will turn 65 in a few months, is contested above all for the great powers it allows the president to exercise: compared to the previous one, it strengthened the executive in favor of the president and replaced the parliamentary system with a semi-presidential one.

It began in the late 1950s with the approval of the seventh republican constitution of France, the one still in force today, although it has since been reviewed 24 times. It was born in the context of the Algerian war, a French colony since 1830. In 1954 the Algerian independence movement decided to move on to armed struggle, and the French repression was extremely violent: so brutal that France’s very presence began to be questioned internationally in the country.

At the end of the Fifties, the return to politics of General Charles de Gaulle gave a turning point to the war. Initially considered the guarantor of French Algeria and strongly desired by the so-called blackfoot, the French of Algeria opposed to independence, de Gaulle gradually began to review his own positions and to recognize the independence movement as a valid interlocutor. This change of position was experienced by the colonists and by a part of the military circles as a betrayal. When France began negotiations with the Algerian provisional government in 1961, a group of French generals opposed to plans for independence attempted to stage a coup, which was stopped by an appeal from de Gaulle.

Taking advantage of this context of great political instability, which among other things the Fourth Republic with its frequent changes of government had favored, Charles de Gaulle was put in charge of a transitional government in charge of writing a new Constitution which was approved by a large majority in a referendum in September 1958. The new Constitution replaced the parliamentary system with a stronger and more centralized semi-presidential system and initially provided that the president was elected by a college composed of elected politicians. In 1962 de Gaulle proposed the direct election of the president and this change was also approved by referendum.

The President of France therefore today has a power of political direction, especially in foreign policy. He heads diplomacy and the armed forces, presides over the Superior Council of Defense and the Superior Council of the Judiciary, and shares executive power with the prime minister, whom he himself appoints on the basis of the electoral result (therefore hardly president and Minister I disagree). It has the exclusive power to organize a referendum on a proposal from the government or from the chambers, to dissolve parliament, to nominate three members and the president of the Constitutional Council, which establishes the legitimacy of the new laws and, before promulgating them, can request control of the Constitutional Council.

In collaboration with the prime minister, the president appoints or dismisses government ministers, promulgates or temporarily vetoes laws, negotiates and ratifies international treaties, and, in the event of a national emergency, can assume full powers and legislate by decree.

The Constitution that gave rise to the Fifth Republic also contains a series of tools that allow for limiting parliamentary debate and approving a law without going through a parliamentary vote: it is the famous article 49.3 used for the pension reform. These tools were used by all the presidents of the Fifth Republic. Article 49.3, in particular, has been applied a hundred times since 1958, but rarely in the last two decades, when parliamentary majorities were more solid, and almost never for an important reform at the center of a public debate as complicated as that of pensions.

Since his first mandate Emmanuel Macron has struggled to shake off the image of a privileged man closer to the bourgeois elite than to the daily problems of ordinary people. His latest decisions on the pension reform, approved with a “constitutional override”, have fueled the debate about him and more generally on the powers of the president, and have caused several commentators to speak of a “crisis of democracy”. The idea of ​​overcoming the Fifth Republic has nonetheless been present for some time in French public political discussions.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left and his party, La France Insoumise, have been pursuing the idea of ​​a Sixth Republic for years. They say the concentrated and solitary power of France’s Fifth Republic presidents has helped to deepen divisions in the country and increase popular mistrust of democracy.

The same criticisms were made by Mélanie Vogel, a senator elected by the French living abroad and head of the Green party in Europe. In an editorial published are The world at the end of April, Vogel wrote that «at a time when the social crisis and the democratic crisis are one» a change has become «the only credible way to put an end to it». The Fifth Republic, Vogel went on to say, produced “the verticality of power, an absurd centralism, (..) the absence of dialogue, contempt for the social partners, the cult of the leader and the oppression of parliament”. And this, he concluded, “has weakened trust in politics, in parties, in institutions”: he therefore proposed the construction of a “fully parliamentary, fully representative Republic, which will finally bring France into the time of modern democracy”.

Patrick Martin-Genier, lecturer at Science Po and author of a book titled Towards a Sixth Republic or how to rebuild French democracy (Towards a Sixth Republic or how to re-found French democracy), argues in turn that the absence of checks and balances to the power of the president has become “increasingly evident and less and less acceptable”, and that the Fifth Republic is “completely outdated compared to European and Western democracies”, not reformable if not radically and more easily overcome.

Raphaël Porteilla, professor of political science at the University of Bourgogne, spoke of French-style «hyper-presidentialism», which keeps people «on the margins» of the political process and which, in the absence of serious opposition, can lead to authoritarianism: « Citizens limit themselves to the role of spectators and, increasingly, of non-voters». Voter turnout in the second round of the 2022 presidential elections, which returned Macron to the presidency of France for a second term, was the lowest since 1969.

These concerns are also being discussed due to the possibility that Marine Le Pen, leader of the extreme right, will win the next presidential elections. Second The world it is shared the idea, even among those close to Macron, that the “social resentment” created by the pension reform will last for months and perhaps years, and that it could politically favor the far right.

However, not everyone agrees on the need to overcome the Fifth Republic and there are also those who believe that the current system should be maintained.

Some commentators or scholars, such as David Bellamy, professor of contemporary history at the Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, think that the Fifth Republic has demonstrated over time «its great flexibility and adaptability to all sorts of political situations: decolonization, wars, civil unrest, the resignation or disappearance of presidents, cohabitations (between the president of a party and an opposing majority, ndr), parliaments of different persuasions, small and large majorities, referendums won and lost, harmony between the two Chambers or, conversely, conflict between them». It should therefore not be overcome, especially in a moment of such great political uncertainty, because this could be dangerous and lead to yet more uncertainties.