“Cohabitation today would undoubtedly be more painful than previous ones”

Arnaud Teyssier is a historian, specialist in the Fifth Republic and Gaullism, author of the recent The Pompidou-de Gaulle enigma (Tempus, 2024), but stillPolitical history of the Fifth Republic: 1958-2011 (Perrin, 2011), Richelieu: The Eagle and the Dove (Perrin, 2014) and Philippe Séguin: the remorse of the right (Perrin, 2017). He examines with us the historical scope of this period post-dissolution of the National Assembly by Emmanuel Macron. For him, the question is political but also human and personal: unlike the specialists in political guerrilla warfare who were Mitterrand and Chirac, Arnaud Teyssier believes that Emmanuel Macron will have difficulty supporting cohabitation. And very concretely to be the “ silent witness to a Council of Ministers over which he would only apparently preside “.

Marianne: To what degree is the situation that we are experiencing, and that we are still preparing to experience, historic on the scale of the Fifth Republic? We evoke the Gaullian character of the dissolution of Emmanuel Macron: is this the case?

Arnaud Teyssier: It is historic to the extent that the balance of power and the order of battle are fundamentally new. Until now, we had experienced more or less classic right-left clashes, between so-called “governing” parties, even if the left was very fragmented and the National Rally was constantly asserting itself. Even Renaissance was part of a still familiar landscape. Today, two “extreme” political forces dominate the field of maneuver and saturate public debate: France Insoumise and the National Rally. With the fear, among many, of a major institutional and societal upheaval.

In the background, stands the President of the Republic, “master of the clocks”… re-elected in 2022, but to whom the voters subsequently refused a real parliamentary majority. It is clear that he wanted, through the dissolution, to pose to the French a question of confidence which had been latent since his re-election, but made all the more necessary by the difficulties which he continued to encounter in governing with a relative majority.

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It is an initiative perfectly consistent with the letter and spirit of the 1958 Constitution, which, we too often forget, has a strongly parliamentary dimension: the aim is to resolve a political crisis. But neither the moment chosen nor the process are “Gaullian”, or “Gaullist”. De Gaulle’s practice of institutions was based on the direct and personal link of the president with the people. When he wanted to verify that he still had his confidence, but especially when he wanted to have a major new direction approved, a major political project, he used the referendum route: he thus had the choice of the moment, and he also had the choice of subject. This is why he was not satisfied with the overwhelming majority given to him by the elections which followed May 68, after the dissolution requested by Pompidou.

But there was a counterpart to the Gaullian choice: a great political risk. He assumed it in 1969, by resigning. And since then, the referendum has been scary. The dissolution itself is not without danger, but we have known since 1997 that it does not involve the personal responsibility of the head of state. What is truly unprecedented and dangerous is that for the first time the dissolution may well not clarify the political situation – perhaps even make it even more complex, by offering no clear parliamentary outcome.

Was the Constitution written by Michel Debré designed to work in this type of case? Is cohabitation with such opposing sensibilities possible?

Yes, and we saw it three times: twice with François Mitterrand, once, for a longer period, with Jacques Chirac. In 1986, ideological antagonism was acute. The conversion of François Mitterrand and the Socialist Party to less dogmatic practices and values ​​than in 1981 was still recent and very progressive. The divide between right and left remained deep. But the circumstances were very different – ​​the men too. Then, in 1993-1995, it was known that François Mitterrand’s second term was nearing its end, and the real political issue was the rivalry that had arisen between Chirac and his lieutenant Balladur. In 1997-2002, finally, Jacques Chirac, who had unnecessarily provoked a “comfort” dissolution, was very weakened, and cohabitation was overall little conflictual.

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It is interesting to note that one of the meager arguments which were presented then in favor of the establishment of the five-year term appears today in all its vanity: we were promised the end of cohabitation. This was obviously absurd. And the political rhythm is now broken, because the future president will undoubtedly be condemned to dissolve again if the mandate comes to an end. It’s a bit of a double whammy for the institutions: the five-year term contributed to depriving the Élysée of its overhanging position, it threw the head of state into the political arena… and we are still entitled to a cohabitation. This fact is crucial and changes the situation, because the presidential function is now very different, the President of the Republic is involved in the partisan game, he has become a majority leader. And with the hyper-presidentialist practice of power that Nicolas Sarkozy inaugurated, the head of state has gotten into the habit of treating his prime ministers as collaborators and having total freedom over his ministers. Cohabitation can only be more painful.

Finally, there are the men.

That’s to say ?

François Mitterrand had been trained in politics under the Fourth Republic, and had completed his experience in the opposition under the Fifth. He was a connoisseur of human temperament, a master of manipulation. He needed all these qualities to face Édouard Balladur who had considerable experience in public affairs. Guerrilla and counter-guerrilla warfare were skillfully conducted on both sides of the diarchy. Even Jacques Chirac, who, in my opinion, “endured” his long cohabitation much more than he dominated it, had a long ministerial and parliamentary experience. This is not the case for Emmanuel Macron, whose great resilience and capacity for action – which no one would dream of underestimating for seven years – are not of the same nature. Would he support cohabitation and the daily ordeal that it represents – like finding himself, for example, a silent witness to a Council of Ministers over which he only apparently presides, or having to share the international stage, or even his powers in matters of defense, with an opposing Prime Minister?

But it is true that the unknown is even larger: will he face him, at Matignon and in the government, proven politicians and good experts of the State like Chirac, Balladur, Lionel Jospin? If an opposing majority comes to power, the personality of the Prime Minister will be decisive, as will his entourage. Likewise, the composition of Matignon’s administrative apparatus, and generally the role of the senior civil service, which once again becomes the backbone of the system if political decision-making is paralyzed.

Is the French right, for its part, experiencing its biggest big bang in decades? You said in our columns that the right is paying for having abandoned the nation and the State.
She pays him even more today…

It’s not a big bang: it’s the end of the game after thirty years of sovereignly renewed errors. Philippe Séguin had described everything, announced everything from the start. In 1991, he said: Republican front politics will put Le Pen (Jean-Marie) at 40%. Around the same time, he denounced the RPR’s unqualified conversion to an imported liberalism, its little-thought-out conversion to monetary Europe, its abandonment of the social question and the primacy given to the role of the State – the State strategist, regulator, “guarantor of the incalculable”: in short, the fundamentals of Gaullism. This is what he then calls the “degaullization” of the RPR. In 2002, he refused to join the UMP, which succeeded the RPR and in which he saw only a Eurocentric conglomerate, without soul and deprived of all roots.

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The rest is known: the UMP became LR, and the main slogans of the new formation were the question of the budgetary deficit and the alleged excess of the State – without really in-depth analysis of the data, certainly very real, of the problem, nor of the deep state of crisis in society. The right, in fact, has become the center. And as nature abhors a vacuum, the far right has taken the place left vacant by the right. It’s as simple as that. I add that Gaullism was much more than the right: it wanted to be a “gathering”. Even this word with a strong symbolic charge was abandoned at the National Front… So, all that remains for the “republican right” is to meditate on its errors and rebuild itself. But I don’t feel that the time for self-examination has yet arrived.