Book Notes French Politics, Debates And Controversies (Elgie & Griggs) Notes

• Framework of the French executive

  • Constitutional position of the executive

    • Executive control of the legislature

      • Due to aim of reinstating the authority of the executive

        • Article 34: Restricts parliament’s ability to legislate in certain areas by setting out the ‘domain of law’ (p.27)

        • Article 38: Government can ask parliament to allow it to legislate by ordinance (p.27)

        • Article 40: Forbids deputies from proposing amendments which affect the budget position

        • Article 42: Obliges parliament to begin the legislative debate by considering the government bill rather than a revised version

        • Article 43: Restricts the number of committees to just six

          • Compare to Nicolas Owen’s comments on the UK system where there is trading and debate between select committees and government resulting in the exertion of influence (in some degree) of parliament over policy-making

          • If the committees of France are too unwieldy, then it serves to follow that they will be able to exert less influence over policy

        • Article 49-3: Allows the government to pass a text without a vote, unless an absolute majority of deputies in Parliament pass a motion of no confidence in the government

      • Clear effect of subjugating the legislature to the executive (p.27)

        • Keeler: Governments declared a bill to be urgent 571 times (1959-1991) and requested the right to legislate by ordinance 24 times. Article 49-3 used 73 times in the same period to pass 38 pieces of legislation. (p.28)

        • Williams: “the Parliament of France, once among the most powerful in the world, became one of the weakest” (p.28)

    • Shared powers of both the president and the prime minister

      • “While the Constitution takes power from legislature, there is a more subtle distribution of power” (p.28)

      • In favour of prime minister:

        • Article 20: Gov decides and directs policy of the nation, it has the administration and the armed forces at its disposal, it is accountable to the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly

        • Article 21: Prime Minister is head of the government and personally responsible for national defence

        • Article 21: In addition, the Prime Minister has the right to issue decrees in the areas in which parliament is not permitted to regulate

          • “Constitution places the Prime Minister at the head of a government, the members of which he or she has chosen and which is collectively responsible for the day-to-day realisation and implementation of public policy” (p.28)

      • In favour of President:

        • Article 5: Provides the President with a wide-ranging responsibility for seeing the constitution is respected

        • Article 8: Chairs weekly meetings of the Council of Ministers

        • Article 9: Power to appoint (but not dismiss the Prime Minister)

        • Article 12: Right to dissolve the National Assembly (although not more than once a year)

        • Article 14: Responsible for accrediting French ambassadors abroad

        • Article 15: Head of the armed forces

        • Article 16: Under a national emergency, the president may issue decrees which have the force of law

        • Article 52: Responsible for negotiating and ratifying international treaties

        • 1962 Amendment: President to be elected by universal suffrage

          • “Two separate sources of popular authority in the system: presidential and parliamentary elections” (p.29)

            • Conflict of legitimacy

          • “Established the presidential election as the focal point of the political process” (p.29)

          • “Institutionalised the potentially conflicting duality at the heart of the French executive” (p.29)

      • Wright: “The central question of any constitution – who rules? – is fudged” (1989)

  • Relationship between president and prime minister

    • de Gaulle and Debre, Pompidou and Couve de Murville: “All three...were long time trusted companions of the general. All three lacked a strong party base. All three wre essentially technicians rather than career politicians” (p.30)

      • None match the personal authority or charisma of the General

    • Pompidou and Chaban-Delmas and Messmer: Strained with Chaban-Delmas due to “tenor of proposed reforms”; not so with Messmer due to “loyalty...weak political presence and ill-health of the president” (p.31)

    • Giscard and Chirac and Barre: Chirac was Gaullist, Giscard Independent Republic, led to breakdown with Chirac resigning claiming that the president was thwarting his reform proposals (p.31)

    • Mitterand presidencies:

      • Periods in which he was able to appoint a socialist Prime Minister

        • Mauroy: loyal to the president, government collapsed in the face of popular disillusionment

          • Does this underline the difficulty of having two sets of elections which both claim to provide popular legitimacy? Dissatisfaction with Mauroy could be expressed at the polls, but Mitterrand still managed to be elected again

        • Fabius: more distant from the President, but “differences were more symbolic than substantive”

        • Rocard: trench warfare given Rocard’s presidential ambitions

        • Cresson and Beregovoy: tainted by fin de regne

      • Periods of cohabitation

        • “By virtue of Article 20, the President has to appoint a prime minister woh is acceptable to the National Assembly. This means though, that when the parliamentary majority is opposed to the president, then the president must appoint a prime minister who is also opposed” (p.32)

        • Chirac: Competitive relations but not savage due to impending 1988 presidential election in which both competed

          • Implicit assumption is that a deadlock or outright conflict could be sufficiently damaging to both as to allow a third party or a different Socialist or Gaullist nominee

        • Not Mitterrand presidency but final period of cohabitation came with Chirac and Jospin

    • Practice “demonstrates the elasticity of executive politics during the Fifth Republic” (p.33)

• Models of executive politics

  • Monocratic government

    • “Monocratic presidential government outside periods of cohabitation and where monocratic prime ministerial government exists during these periods” (p.34)

      • President (or in the latter prime minister) is responsible for the success or...

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