Jean-Louis Thiébault
France voted on June 20 and 27, 2021 to elect members of regional departmental councils. The presence of several contenders for a candidacy for the presidential election of 2022 has led to the development of strategies taking the next election as a prospect. Regional or departmental themes have been the subject of little debate. For many of these contenders, running for regional elections was a way of asserting ideas, preparing a platform, and verifying their notoriety or popularity. The political parties themselves have not hesitated to build alliances in the run-up to the presidential election. President Macron, too, used these regional elections to try to complete the political recomposition of the « partis de governement » (PS and LR), which he had started during the presidential and legislative elections of 2017. He sought to build alliances with members of the right-wing LR party (without much success, except in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region) to fight the far-right Rassemblement National party, but also by asking some ministers to run under the LREM party lists against the lists led by other presidential contenders. It must be said that the presidential election is the matrix of the 5th Republic, it is a separate ballot, and since 1965 it has always been the central election (1).
In France, the goal of strengthening executive power was the subject of much debate in the 1930s and at the end of the 1940s, when politicians, law professors or essayists constantly advocated for a strong executive power. But, the election of the president by universal suffrage was not really envisaged. This idea of strengthening the executive power was taken up under the 4th Republic, notably by General de Gaulle, in the Bayeux’s speech on June 16, 1946 (2). The elaboration of the new Constitution of October 4, 1958, that of the 5th Republic, was carried out taking into account these doctrinal reflections (3). It was also a question of fighting against the “regime des partis”, which was blamed for causing government instability. But the new constitution did not establish the election of the president by universal suffrage. The election was carried out by an Electoral College comprising elected national representatives (deputies and senators) and local elected representatives (general councilors, mayors and delegates of municipal councils). This Electoral College elected General de Gaulle as the first president of the 5th Republic on December 21, 1958. It did not prevent him from adopting an attitude much closer to that of a president as a guide, holder of state power, rather than that of an arbiter between political forces (4). Following an assassination attempt on August 22, 1962, General de Gaulle proposed the election of the president to happen by universal suffrage in order to give him greater legitimacy in the face of divisive political parties. The proposal was voted by the people in the referendum of October 28, 1962, amending article 7 of the Constitution establishing the election of the president.
The presidential election by universal suffrage had several important consequences which affected the balance and functioning of the political system: the nationalization of issues, cleavages and behavior, the personalization of electoral competition, the polarization of political configurations, the reform of the electoral rhythm, the likelihood of conflict with other institutions, the increasing autonomy of candidates from political parties, the mobilization of the electorate (5).
The presidential election led to a nationalization of issues, cleavages and behavior
In principle, the presidential election by universal suffrage, because it imposes the same choices on all voters in the country, tends to nationalize French political life. The election takes place on the same day with the same candidates in the same national territory, while the legislative elections take place with different candidates in the 577 constituencies. The issues, divisions and behavior are the same across the country. Long in advance, the national political considerations of the preparation of the presidential election take full media and political attention the proximity of the presidential election reinforces the nationalization of the poll. Suddenly, a phenomenon of disconnection between this election and other electoral consultations has further developed. Presidential election leads to cannibalization of other electoral consultations (6).
The presidential election led to the personalization of the electoral competition
The presidential election led to an unprecedented personalization of the executive power. The movement towards the personalization of politics has been going on for over half a century. A democracy indeed needs ‘incarnation’. This is the very logic of the presidential system. In presidential regimes, it is natural and necessary that whoever possesses most of the executive power fully assumes its responsibilities. Presidential power needs a clearly visible face, a character clearly bearing the policy for which the president is primarily responsible.
Politicians, media and polls have focused the attention of the French on this unique election by personalizing it to the extreme. In France, the personalization of power has long been seen as a perversion of democracy. In the republican view, good democracy is based on impersonality: power must be collegial, therefore parliamentary. Many politicians amplified this idea at the end of the 19th century by saying that any good democrat should be wary of excessive personalities. The strengthening of the executive power has profoundly changed this relationship to personalization. The presidential election is the triumph of this personalization, since the candidates of the traditional parties were rejected by those who defined themselves as the direct representatives of a popular aspiration, such as Emmanuel Macron, Jean -Luc Mélenchon or Marine Le Pen.
The presidential election led to the polarization of political configurations
This radical change introduced by the presidential election is of a different nature. The two-round majority voting system strongly encouraged the bipolarization of the party system. Before, the party system was fragmented. With the 5th Republic, it became bipolar. Of course, the election of the president by direct universal suffrage naturally did not immediately produce a polarization of political forces, even if, from 1965, General de Gaulle was forced to face François Mitterrand in the second round. It was actually only in 1974 and especially in 1981 that this bipolarization appeared clearly. The presidential election by direct universal suffrage led to a right-left polarization. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes casted in the first ballot, a second round takes place two weeks later, where only the two top candidates in the first round can stand, after possible withdrawal of better placed candidates. The second round of the presidential election is the moment of bipolarization. The electoral system of this election was mechanically polarized around the left-right cleavage. This moment of bipolarization is also, in this election, a moment of bipartism, since the two qualified candidates during this presidential election used to be the candidates of the PS and of the UMP. Bipolarization is also a consequence of the voting method of the legislative elections, the two-round system. This phenomenon was reinforced by the gradual increase in the thresholds of the second round of legislative elections: 5% of the votes casted, then 10% of the number of registered voters (from the legislative elections of 1967) then, finally, 12.5 % of those registered (from the legislative elections of 1978).
The presidential election led to a reform of the electoral rhythm
The reform aimed at reducing the term of the president, by replacing the seven-year term established in France in 1873 with the five-year term accepted by Jacques Chirac in June 2000, when he decided to table a constitutional bill. After the text was adopted by parliament, the president favored the organization of a referendum. Called to answer the question “Do you approve the draft constitutional law fixing the term of office of the President of the Republic at five years?”, the citizens voted ” yes ” by a large majority (73.2% of the votes casted), but in a context of abstention (69.8% of those registered). Put in place for the first time following the 2002 presidential election, the five-year term increased the regime’s “presidentialization” that began with the election of the president by direct universal suffrage (8). This trend was amplified by the vote in 2001 to reverse the electoral calendar. The presidential election is held just before the legislative elections and not the other way around, in order to give the president a coherent majority in the National Assembly, which has led to the strengthening of the « fait majoritaire ».
These two reforms, the five-year term and the inversion of the electoral calendar, had the effect of changing the electoral rhythm. The objective of the advocates of the reform of the electoral calendar was, of course, to maximize the chances of the new president to obtain a parliamentary majority. The reversal of the electoral calendar seems to have achieved its goal : just after the presidential elections of 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017, the legislative elections, with the amplifying effect of the majority vote, sent a majority of deputies to the National Assembly from the same party of the newly elected president. This accentuation of the “fait majoritaire” further increased the preeminence of the president, but also his impact since the legislative elections became a confirmation on his name (7)
The presidential election led to a likelihood of conflicts between the president and other institutions
In France, cohabitation is an institutional phenomenon that has occurred three times since the entry into force of the 1958 Constitution (1986-1988, 1993-1995 and 1997-2002). In this political system where the President of the Republic usually has an active role, there is cohabitation when the two heads of the executive, the president and the government, belong to opposing political parties (8). When cohabitation occurs, the perception of political representation is again profoundly changed. There is an impression of division of the representation between, on the one hand, the parliamentary majority and the government which determines and leads the policy of the nation, and, on the other hand, the president, reduced essentially to its role of arbiter, even if he claimed a power-sharing in certain areas. The distribution of powers is much more balanced under cohabitation. The president then continued to ensure the representation of France abroad and to decide on the direction of foreign policy (his reserved domain sometimes shared in the case of cohabitation) while the prime minister ensures the management of internal affairs. Since 2000 with the reduction of the presidential mandate to five years (duration equal to that of the National Assembly), then in 2002 with the decision to change the electoral calendar (the presidential election to take place before the legislative elections) by holding these two ballots in the space of five weeks, the possibility of cohabitation has diminished.
The presidential election led to the growing autonomy of candidates from the political parties.
The presidential election led to the exhaustion of the form of traditional political parties. They no longer represent social categories for a long time, because society is no longer only constituted from a few large social groups, but from much more complex and changing social situations. They also face competition from political parties of a new type, such as those of Emmanuel Macron, Marine Le Pen or Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Traditional political parties do not control the launching of presidential candidacy. Many candidates from these traditional parties announce their candidacy without waiting for the nomination given by their party. This attitude refers to the idea that the Fifth Republic was built against the « regime des partis ». General de Gaulle’s desire to tackle the weight of parties was rooted in a conception of politics centered around the question of rallying. The new regime wanted to end the “régime des partis,” as it was in the past, and instead to promote and strengthen national unity. The elimination of the second round of the two candidates nominated at the end of open primaries and from the two governing parties which have succeeded each other for decades in power obviously puts into question the place of these political parties within the French political system today. The presidential election was also a factor of divisions within the presidential parties. It led to the development of ideological factions which then became real machines to support faction leaders in the run-up to a presidential election.
The presidential election led to the mobilization of the electorate.
In France, the presidential election is the key moment in the mobilization of the electorate and the political momentum of the country. The lowest abstention was that of the second round in 1974 (12, 78%). The abstention for the presidential election has never seen significant increase; it was 28,40% and 20,29% in 2002, 16,23% and 16,03% in 2007, 20,52% and 19,65% in 2012 and reached 22,23% and 25,44% in 2017. But the second round of the 2017 presidential election, which ended with the victory of Emmanuel Macron, with 65.8% of the vote, against 34.2% for the candidate of the Front National, Marine Le Pen, was marked by a record-high abstention. It was the highest abstention for a second round since the 1969 presidential election. Nevertheless, the political context was markedly different. The elimination of the candidates of the two main governing parties in the first round led to disaffection of their electorate.
The election of the president by universal suffrage had a profound influence on French political life and underlined its particularities. But the results of the 2017 presidential election and the preparation of the campaign for the next presidential election in 2022 cast doubt on the continuity of this impact. The principle of electing the president by universal suffrage is the subject of contestation, in particular from left-wing political groups and environmentalists. The president is criticized for his dominance in politics. The presidential election would have ended up producing a deep distrust of the French towards the political class and the political parties of government (LR and PS), aggravated by the presidency of François Hollande, who was elected under deep social promises and who renounced everything (9). The results of the 2017 presidential election saw the shift in bipolarization and the rise of right-wing (Rassemblement National, RN) and left-wing protesting political parties (La France Insoumise, LFI), but also of political parties that intend to renew the political supply by going beyond the right-left divide, with a project of political recomposition (La République en Marche, LREM), to the detriment of the traditional parties weakened by the introduction of open primary elections. However, these two types of new parties are now experiencing difficulties. The Rassemblement National (RN) is suffering a phenomenon of attrition, manifested by the results of the recent regional elections. As for the La République en Marche (LREM), it failed to build a powerful and coordinated structure to disseminate ideas, train executives and win local elections, while Emmanuel Macron was busy facing two major crises, of the “yellow vests” and of the Covid-19. The 2022 election will be an occasion to judge the sustainability of the centrality of the election of the president by direct universal suffrage in France.
References
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- Jean-Luc Parodi, « Effets et non-effets de l’élection présidentielle », Pouvoirs, no 14, 1980, 5-14
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- Annie Laurent, « Des effets de l’inversion du calendrier électoral sur la fragmentation du système partisan français (1967-2012) », in Yves Déloye, Alexandre Dézé, Sophie Maurer, dir, Institutions, élections, opinion. Mélanges en l’honneur de Jean-Luc Parodi. Presses de Sciences Po, 2014, chapitre 6
- Marie-Anne Cohendet, La cohabitation. Leçons d’une expérience. Presses Universitaires de France, 1993 ; Robert Elgie and Ian MacMenamin, « Explaining the onset of cohabitation under semi-presidentialism », Political Studies, vol 59, issue 3, 2011, 616-635 ; Robert Elgie, « ‘Cohabitation’ : Divided government French style », in Robert Elgie, ed, Divided government in comparative perspective. Oxford University Press, 2001, chapter 6
- Emiliano Grossman, Nicolas Sauger, Why do we hate our policies so much? Presses de Sciences Po, 2017
