For the moment, Emmanuel Macron is brushing aside this hypothesis. This Tuesday, December 10, in front of party leaders at the Elysée, excluding RN and LFI, the head of state expressed “his desire not to dissolve the National Assembly by 2027,” Marine reported. Tondelier, national secretary of the Ecologists. Or not before the year of the next presidential election.
For this, the objective of the President of the Republic is to broaden the “common base” to the left-wing forces, with the exception of France Insoumise, in a “non-censorship agreement”. To be part of it, ecologists, socialists and communists are demanding the appointment of a head of government from the NFP and a commitment not to use 49.3.
Whoever the next Prime Minister is, the blockage in the tripartite lower house could continue, making it impossible to vote on any compromise text. To try to resolve this situation, Emmanuel Macron could then be required to dissolve the National Assembly and declare new legislative elections, without being certain of a change in the balance of power. When could this scenario happen?
A question of timing
According to article 12 of the Constitution, the President of the Republic can only dissolve the National Assembly on one condition: compliance with the timetable. “A new dissolution cannot be carried out in the year following these elections,” we can read. The last legislative elections were held on June 30 (first round) and July 7 (second round). Should the term “following year” be taken into account from the decree of dissolution, i.e. June 9, of the first or second round?
For constitutionalist Théo Ducharme “article 12 must be interpreted as referring to the second round, that is to say after the final election of the National Assembly”. However, according to the lecturer in public law, we must be careful because “it has not been decided in law”. There is no precedent to rely on and no judge has said he is competent to control the compliance of a dissolution. Twice, in 1988 and in 2024, the Constitutional Council declared itself incompetent. It is ultimately the President who signs the decree of dissolution and it is he who interprets the Constitution.
According to this interpretation, the dissolution could therefore take place as early as Monday July 7, 2025. Then, the ballot must take place at least twenty days and a maximum of forty days after the dissolution. Either between Sunday July 27 and Sunday August 10. The forty days from July 7th bring us to Saturday August 16th, however the election must take place on a Sunday. We can also imagine that the dissolution would not be decided as soon as the constitutional deadline has elapsed, but upon returning from the 2025 summer vacation.
