The French Revolution established the principle of the sovereignty of the people. But France has never found a clear means of putting that principle into effect. Since 1789, it has had no fewer than 14 constitutions, including five republics. How, General de Gaulle asked, can anyone govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese?
The Third and Fourth Republics—1875-1940 and 1946-1958 respectively—sought the answer in a powerful legislature representing the people: a régime d’assemblée. But the outcome, thanks to a fluid and fragmented party system, was a series of short-lived, fluctuating and unstable coalitions; and in consequence weak government.
De Gaulle’s Fifth Republic, created in 1958, proposed a different solution—a powerful presidency, enjoying legitimacy derived from direct election. Armed with a mandate from the people, the president would appoint a prime minister responsible to the Assembly.
This constitution, with its accompanying two-ballot system of election, would, it was hoped, yield a bipolar party structure in which power alternated between a left and a right bloc, so ensuring strong government.
The system worked reasonably well for over 60 years. But it has now broken down.
Until 2017, the two dominant parties were, first, the Republicans, heirs to the Gaullists and other moderate right parties; second, the Socialists. But by the time of the 2022 presidential election those parties were reduced to just 4.8 per cent of the vote and 1.4 per cent respectively.
They had been supplanted by Emmanuel Macron’s new party En Marche—now relabelled Renaissance—which carried him to victory in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections.
But, as in Austria, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia, the main beneficiary of the fragmentation of party systems—a long-term consequence of the decline of class allegiances and, I suspect, the 2008 credit crunch—has been not the centre but the far right. In France, as in Germany, the far left has also benefited in the shape of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement, La France Insoumise, (France Unbowed), which has proved a more popular alternative to the now minuscule French Communist Party.
What unites the far right and far left is nationalism. Indeed, Europe now faces a nationalist moment; and as in much of the continent the parties of the internationalist centre have seen their vote share fall. The French far left, while rhetorically internationalist, shares with Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National a Euroscepticism and hostility to western support for Ukraine. Both seek to restore French sovereignty from the European Union, which the far left sees as a barrier to socialism. La France Insoumise goes further, rejecting Nato and seeking to replace the Fifth Republic with a Sixth whose outlines are currently somewhat nebulous.
The far right seemed the more immediate danger. In June’s European Parliament elections, the Rassemblement, with 31 per cent of the vote, won 30 out of 81 seats, 17 more than its nearest competitor, putting Marine Le Pen in pole position to win the 2027 presidential election.
Macron reacted by dissolving the Assembly and calling a snap election. His aim was to decontaminate France by smashing the far right. But the voters repudiated him. The Macronist centre lost more than 70 seats, the far right gained 53, and the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP)—an uneasy alliance of social democrats and La France Insoumise—emerged as the largest bloc but in a deadlocked Assembly.
In place of the bipolar system that ruled the country for so long, France now has a three-bloc structure which contradicts the binary logic of the constitution and creates an unprecedented crisis for the Fifth Republic.
Macron refused to appoint a prime minister from the NFP, arguing that such a government would not have a majority and be unable to act. After a post-election delay of 11 weeks, the longest since the war, and longer than anything seen under the unstable Fourth Republic, he appointed Michel Barnier from the Republicans, a party which came fourth with around 5 per cent of the vote. In the words of the Bible, the last will be first and the first will be last. Barnier now leads a coalition of the defeated, the first government of the Fifth Republic entirely lacking popular legitimacy.
In Britain, Barnier is remembered as the EU’s silver-tongued Brexit negotiator. In France his image is that of a veteran pragmatist. Having begun on the moderate right, he has now started to echo the tunes of the Rassemblement, calling for a referendum on immigration and the restoration of French sovereignty from the European courts.
Barnier can probably rely on support from Renaissance—though that party is itself divided between a centre right and a centre left—as well as the Republicans, but he is dependent for survival on the Rassemblement. Le Pen has become the arbiter of the Barnier government and can at any time pull the plug, triggering a dissolution. Instead of being vanquished she is now the kingmaker. De Gaulle and Chirac never flirted with the far right but Macron, a former Socialist who in February declared that the Rassemblement was not part of the “republican arc”, seems content to do so. Indeed, he now depends on the very party he sought to eliminate.
Most prime ministers in the Fifth Republic have been subordinates of the president. But, in three previous cohabitations—1986-88, 1993-95 and 1997-2002—the parties opposed to the president enjoyed a clear majority and the premier became in effect the head of government. The president no longer enjoyed powers derived from his role as majority leader. He retained only those powers given to him by the constitution which, contrary to popular belief, are very limited.
The current cohabitation is less clear-cut since the prime minister does not enjoy a majority in the Assembly. But Barnier does not regard himself as a subordinate. “The president,” he has said, “will preside and the government will govern.” Macron, however, though opposed by over two-thirds of the Assembly, has no intention of merely presiding. So, in place of cohabitation, there is likely to be rivalry. A deadlocked Assembly will then co-exist with a deadlocked executive. The outcome would be what the French call un mariage blanc—an unconsummated marriage.
The French, then, have still not found a solution to the problem posed by the 1789 Revolution. Can they escape from this regime crisis—or is the Fifth Republic destined to go the way of its predecessors?
