To what extent has the French political system become less 'Presidential' in character since 1986?

AS and A Level Politics

Mohammed Mirza

BA Politics

2nd Year

PL2004 Government B

To what extent has the French political system become less ‘Presidential’ in character since 1986?

The French political system is described as a hybrid system with a separately elected President who shares executive power with the Prime Minister. It is a hybrid model that is most cited as a semi-presidential system where the constitution and political circumstances tend to place the emphasis on the powers of the President. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic sought to strengthen the executive in relation to the legislature. The role of the President as head of state and pivot of this new system was and is that of a national arbiter standing above party politics and responsible for ensuring that the institutions function properly. Since 1962, the President has been directly elected giving him the mandate of the people. Charles de Gaulle founder and first President of the fifth Republic believed that this made the President accountable only to the public. Thus the directly elected President with his pivotal role outlined in the constitution of the Fifth Republic plays an almost central role in French politics. This essay seeks to outline this role in the system and address whether the French system has become less presidential since 1986.

The constitution defines the President’s power and it is these powers that centralise his figure in French politics. To start with the French President is elected for five years and this is the longest term in any parliamentary system. In addition, the President may be re-elected an indefinite number of times unlike the US President. It must also be said that French President is elected more on his charisma and policies. The people elect a person to the position not a party. Therefore the incumbent having been elected can use his charisma and diplomacy to remain in power. The people have elected him as an individual and he sits as head of state.

Under article 15 the President is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the guarantor of national independence, territorial integrity and observance of treaties under article 5. This is the license that the President has been given to carry out his central role in French Politics. The President as commander in chief of the armed forces has what the heads of states of most countries don’t have: the power to command the military. Therefore under a crisis the French President would be looked upon and he must use the mandate given to him to solve the crisis. It is his duty under the constitution to be the guarantor of national independence and territorial integrity. It is the President whose job it is to protect the liberty of the citizens and this centralises his figure in French politics. The French military is still one of the world’s major forces. The head of state is commanding an internationally renowned force. As guarantor of observance of treaties the French President plays a key role in Foreign policy and again this is a power few heads of state in Europe have. The Iraq issue caused much concern in France and it is Jacque Chirac who had to take the spotlight on what stance France would undertake.

The President under article 5 shall see that the Constitution is observed. He shall ensure, by his arbitration, the proper functioning of the public authorities and the continuity of the state. On top of the fact he is in charge of the military it is his role under the constitution to ensure that the state and government are running well giving the President even more of a central figure. The day to day running of the government is, left to the Prime Minister and Cabinet. However, it is the role of the French President to ensure that the government functions accordingly and in the correct manner. Further, the President appoints, and can remove the Prime Minister, who is effectively the head of the cabinet and legislature. Similar to a parliamentary model, the National Assembly of France can force the government the Prime Minister and legislative leaders to resign by passing a motion of censure. Thus, in the French model, while the Prime Minister is vulnerable to removal from both the legislature and the President, the President cannot be removed prior to the end of his electoral term. This further highlights the President as the pivot of the system.

Under article 10 the President promulgates Acts of Parliament. Under article 13 the President signs the ordinances and decrees deliberated upon by the Council of Ministers. According to de Gaulle the 3rd and 4th Republics were hindered by the fact the President had a weaker role in governance. With these two articles in the constitution the President has more authority and is the one who promulgates acts of parliament. It is with his approval ordinances and decrees are taken forward and again this shows how the French system is Presidential in character. He has been elected by the people to be the ...

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Under article 10 the President promulgates Acts of Parliament. Under article 13 the President signs the ordinances and decrees deliberated upon by the Council of Ministers. According to de Gaulle the 3rd and 4th Republics were hindered by the fact the President had a weaker role in governance. With these two articles in the constitution the President has more authority and is the one who promulgates acts of parliament. It is with his approval ordinances and decrees are taken forward and again this shows how the French system is Presidential in character. He has been elected by the people to be the arbiter of governmental institutions.

Under article 64 the President is the guarantor of the independence of the judicial authority and presides over the High Council of the Judiciary, which makes proposals and advises on the appointment of judges. The US system may be presidential but even it does not have such extended powers given to the President. In the US there is a separation of powers principle created by the US constitution. In the Fifth Republic the constitution gives the President as the peoples representative the powers to influence all circles of power. The French President has significant influence in the executive whom he shares with Prime Minister and cabinet, the legislature that he is the arbiter of and as mentioned he presides over the High council. He ensures that the judiciary remain independent. Under article 17 the President also has the right of pardon. This power remains since 1803 and what it emphasises is that the President can to an extent overrule the judges who indict those who have broken the laws.

Under article 13 the President makes appointments to the highest civilian and military posts. This gives the President the powers of patronage whilst in office. He can appoint civil servants whom he feels will follow his ideological ethos. He can appoint military leaders that follow his path. He can advise and influence Judicial appointments and again as mentioned before this is a power few heads of state in Europe enjoy. The French system has been designed to put the peoples representative acting as a watchman and mediator. His mandate and powers show how ‘Presidential’ the French system is and what needs to be looked at is events that may have made the French system less Presidential since 1986.

1986 was the year that saw the start of the cohabitation era. It was the start of the period when a President of different political allegiance would be forced to work with a Prime Minister who would also have a different political thought. Elections in France had normally been done through a first past the post system. This was introduced by General de Gaulle as an antidote to the instability which had plagued the governments of the Fourth Republic and which had been largely due to proportional representation. The proportional system was brought back for the 1986 general election by the Socialist government, which was seeking better representation for small political groups. A right-wing coalition won a majority in Parliament, and Jacques Chirac was appointed prime minister. The President’s role could be affected as he could end up working with a government with a different ideological ethos. Chirac believed in a policy of rolling back the state and began privatising state owned companies. An example of this was of TF1. This was the TV Company run by the government and it was Chirac’s persistence that got it privatised with much opposition. France was going through an unemployment phase where unemployment was high. Privatising could cut back more jobs and this could be a concern to the President. The day to day running of the government was in the Prime Ministers’ hands and it was they who were in the spotlight in domestic issues. Chirac disagreed with the President on many occasions undermining his authority. The President F. Mitterrand had to make concessions due to the strong government.

What this showed was that the president was vulnerable to hostile Government. David Bell argued in his book “In constitutional terms the President was a hostage in the Elysee. As long as the Prime Minister was backed by a united majority, they held the formal levers of power and the substance of policy making and implementation.” (P178) The President in cohabitation was unable to get his way all the time. He was forced by the constitution to stay out of the way.

In 1991 France agreed to sign the 1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Mitterrand turned increasingly to foreign affairs and pursued a more moderate economic program. The cold war was over and now the President could concentrate more on domestic matters. Nonetheless, in the 1993 elections, with the Socialists overwhelmed by rising unemployment and corruption scandals, conservative parties captured nearly 85% of the seats in the national assembly, and Edouard Balladur a Gaullist, became premier. Again another cohabitation period as the Premier was not a follower of Mitterrand’s policies. The President had to appoint him as the victor of the 1988 general elections. The new government slashed interest rates and followed other policies aimed at stemming France's continuing recession. Mitterrand’s role was overshadowed by domestic affairs making the system somewhat less Presidential.

In 1995, Chirac was elected president, defeating Balladur and a Socialist candidate; he appointed Alain Juppe as prime minister. Mitterrand health and age had made him end his term with no real desire to stand again for office. Following on France was beset by a host of problems in 1995, including severe floods and terror bombings; the government faced international criticism for its nuclear testing in the South Pacific, which it resumed after a three-year moratorium; and the country was paralysed late in the year by a long transportation workers strike. The strike action was one of many that followed the announcement by Prime Minister Juppe of a wide-ranging plan to overhaul the massive social security system and to raise taxes all actions aimed at helping to reduce the budget deficit and enable France to qualify for European monetary union, which was achieved in 1999. Chirac now President had an ally in office this time but again the President was overshadowed in domestic matters. Juppe was becoming unpopular and his inability to solve the domestic problems saw him lose his position in the elections. The Constitution specifies the powers that are exercised personally by the President and those that he shares with the Prime Minister. Chirac could not do much about Juppe’s problems. Following parliamentary elections in 1997, Socialist Lionel Jospin became Prime Minister. This was the third cohabitation period in the Fifth Republic and consensus was hard to find between Chirac the President and Jospin the Prime Minister. Therefore post 1986 the President has had to deal with cohabitation. He has had to share power in the hardest of conditions and in domestic matters has been left overshadowed by the appointed Premier.

In late 2000, Chirac was accused of involvement in a 1980s kickback scheme that provided funds for political parties when he was mayor of Paris, but he denied any knowledge of the scheme. The charges created political difficulties for Chirac but did not greatly affect his popularity. However, it did show that the President was under the scrutiny of the legislature. When it is said that the French system is Presidential it should not be concluded that the President is supreme over everything. This incident proves this and highlights the system in France. It was again under a somewhat hostile government that the President was being attacked by the legislature.

The Socialist parliament in 2001 approved a bill giving Corsica limited autonomy. The move was originally intended to end separatist violence there, but the year actually saw an increase in attacks, and the law was subsequently ruled in large part to be unconstitutional. The French President’s role as arbiter of all institutions was again somewhat overshadowed, as it was the legislature that approved the bill in Corsica. The President was supposed to and could have dealt with the matter more intensely but it was the legislature that was left to deal with the problem. Algeria in 1958 was a far more serious problem and it was the President that solved the crisis and although Corsica was far less serious the President should have dealt with it. The President is the arbiter of all institutions and guarantor of national independence and territorial integrity. With this in mind surely the President should have dealt with the problem in Corsica.

In 1986 when Chirac was the Prime Minister he set up a foreign policy unit in Matignon. Foreign ministry personnel were stationed there. They were to control the information tap to the President and used this against him. What this showed was that foreign policy and affairs were sliding more into the office of the Prime Minister. David Bell argued in his book (p190) that the President was treated in a ‘need to know’ basis. The examples of this were issues in Chad, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The President was not always informed about talks with Iran during the 1980’s. This emphasises that power was to some degree shifting. The appointed Prime Minister was now sharing the power the President had in foreign affairs. Chirac as Prime Minister was starting to act as a statesman having made visits to Washington and Moscow.

At the G7 summit in Tokyo in 1987 Chirac allegedly told the Japanese Prime Minster he controlled foreign policy. This was leaked to the press and it was something the President did not like very much. (David Bell, p189) Adding to this back at Matignon the Foreign office created by the Prime Minister some 48 ambassadors were moved around by the Prime Minister. In other words the Prime Minister was able to get his allies into significant posts giving him more influence in foreign policy. It can be said that during cohabitation the powers of the President slid somewhat to the Government.

The EU after 1986 too began to assert more influence and more power over the EU member states. 1991 saw Britain being overruled by the EU court in Strasbourg over the row with Spanish fisherman. The factortame ruling as it was called was a landmark ruling as it indicated to other EU states that domestic laws of member states could be overruled by the now superior EU judicial system. In 2000 the EU court ruled against France over the row on lifting the ban on British beef imports. Again this highlighted that the French political system was like any other EU member state subject tot the laws of the EU.

What can be concluded is that the French system has seen influencing factors change the shape of it. The ‘presidential in character’ term has to be viewed in a different way. The President as described earlier is the people’s representative acting as the watchman of the state. He is the arbiter of the institutions, the guarantor of national independence. He is the person who is commander in chief of the army. It is he who appoints the prime Minster. It is his role to ensure that the judicial system remains independent. As Commander in chief it is he who is looked upon to deal with a serious crisis. It is the French President that can grant pardons and all of this places the President in French politics into a central figure. The EU may rule over French law and this may increase over the years but it is the French President who is fundamentally in charge of the system. Even if the French system becomes completely overshadowed the President will still be the figurehead.

The cohabitation period may have shown that the President could be left out over certain issues. His grip over foreign policy may have loosened but the constitution has not been amended to make any major changes to his role. He still has the role designed by de Gaulle. Bell put forward the notion that De Gaulle created the Presidential regime and subsequent Presidents preserved or invigorated it. (Bell p242) The President can use his powers and influence very broadly broader than even the US President. However he does share the executive with the Prime minister. The US President is the chief executive under the US constitution but in the French system the President has to share that power with the Prime Minister. This has been in place since 1958 but the changes since 1986 have seen some Presidential powers slide towards the Prime Minister. Even so, the core powers outlined remain and therefore the French system is still ‘Presidential’ in character. It will take major amendments to change his central figure in French politics.

Bibliography

‘Developments in French politics 2’, Alain Guyomarch, Palgrave, 2001

‘The Government and Politics of France’, Anne Stevens, Macmillan, 1996. 2nd Ed.

‘Presidential Power in Fifth Republic’, David S Bell, Oxford 2000.