Does the fall of Michel Barnier's Government signal a challenge to our institutions and, if so, is it good or bad news? Would it not be appropriate to take note of the current situation of institutional blockage in which we find ourselves to consider that at 66 years old it is perhaps time to retire the Fifth Republic and replace it with a brand new 6th Republic, necessarily adorned with all the qualities? A certain number of politicians and constitutionalists think so, ignoring the saying which warns that “one is better than two.” For our part, we consider rather, by adapting the famous formula of an illustrious British head of government that, if the Fifth Republic is the worst political regime that France has known, it is to the exclusion of all others , and therefore deserves to be saved.
This regime, established during the summer of 1958, and profoundly modified following the crisis of autumn 1962, has the disadvantage of allowing the head of state to occupy a prominent place, without however putting pressure on the latter the obligation to assume political responsibility. This observation is hardly debatable, but the Fifth Republic also presented until recent days another characteristic, clearly more positive; its remarkable governmental stability. What other political regime can boast of having seen 62 years elapse between 2 ministerial crises of parliamentary origin which forced a Government to submit its resignation, and this, while having allowed various political alternations to take place? We don't know of any.
More than the central role of the head of state, which causes our regime to oscillate between a dualist parliamentary regime and a presidentialist regime, we can consider that the main characteristic of the Fifth Republic is governmental stability. However, what made this governmental stability possible, of exceptional duration, was the existence of a majority fact, that is to say the systematic existence, at the end of each legislative election, of a majority, if not absolute, at least quasi-absolute, of deputies capable of supporting a Government. This remarkable phenomenon suffered no exception during the 15 legislative elections which took place between 1962 and 2022.
Certainly, this majority fact has almost always benefited the President of the Republic, constituting what we could qualify as a perfect majority fact, but it also worked against him on 3 occasions, allowing our country to continue to benefit from governmental stability during the famous cohabitations.
It is the disappearance of this famous majority fact, during the last legislative elections, which is the cause of our current institutional problems..
If we can deplore this, we should not be surprised. Indeed, this majority fact was based on the bipolarization of our political life and this was replaced by a tripolarization. For 30 years, the appearance of a third political bloc, to the right of the right pole, had no consequence, the use of the two-round single-member majority vote to elect deputies, having made it possible to deprive it of parliamentary representation. The system could therefore continue to function as if this third political pole did not exist. As nature abhors a vacuum, the progressive sliding of the right pole towards the center has freed up a space that this 3th block gradually occupied. Eventually, it reached sufficient critical mass to benefit from significant parliamentary representation, despite its isolation. It is for this reason that the last legislative elections produced a result close to that which we would have obtained with an election by proportional representation.
Due to this political situation,
the election of deputies by majority vote has lost its main advantage; enable a parliamentary majority to be achieved
on which a Government can rely, while retaining its main disadvantage; not representing political forces in proportion to their real influence. With few significant developments to be expected, both in terms of the balance of power and the relations between these three blocs in the coming months, it is very likely that the same causes will continue to produce the same effects and that a future dissolution will not rhyme with solution. We could very well say to ourselves that all this is not very serious; that it is appropriate to “give time” and that, sooner or later, the political situation will unblock itself, either due to a change in the balance of power between these three blocs, or thanks to the signing of alliances which would not only be electoral but also governmental. To do this, it is enough to ignore the state in which our public finances find themselves, due to decades of budgetary laxity. On the other hand, if we consider that it would be desirable to start restoring our budgetary situation as soon as possible, we must act so that our Government can rely on a stable parliamentary majority.
Failing to modify our institutions, for a very uncertain result, we could make a simple modification of the methods of election of deputies, in order to attempt to bring out the majority fact again on which our Governments have been able to rely for more than 60 years.
The majority vote no longer produces its effects, since our political life is organized around three blocs, its replacement by a proportional vote would only make things worse. Not only would it reinforce the already evident seal between these three political poles, but, in addition, it would favor the representation of other political tendencies making the constitution of a governmental majority even more improbable.
This national political situation is reminiscent of that which we deplored, at the regional level, in the 1990s, when the election of regional councilors by proportional representation allowed the representation of the new political bloc, which had appeared in the previous decade, at its true value, and deprived most of the regional deliberative bodies of a majority. Couldn't the solution that was then found at the regional level, namely the introduction of a majority bonus in favor of the list that came first, be transposed to the national level?[1] ?
Granting a bonus of 25% of seats to the winning list ensures that a majority will emerge from the elections,
even in the case of triangular. Thanks to this reform, all regional executives benefit from the support of a homogeneous majority. As long as our national political configuration does not evolve significantly, only an election of deputies within the framework of a mixed ballot, combining proportional representation and a majority bonus in favor of the political bloc that comes first, will allow us to benefit, once again, from a Government capable of determining and leading the policy of the Nation.
Therefore, the only question that really deserves to be asked is: determine the characteristics of this bonus.
It goes without saying that the latter cannot be aligned with that which applies to municipal elections and which corresponds to 50% of the seats. The extent of this bonus, which nothing justifies today, can only be explained by the circumstances in which it was established, in 1982. At the time, the new municipal voting method, therefore proportional, with a majority bonus of 50% of seats, replaced a voting method identical to that which applies in 48 of the 50 American states for the presidential election; namely, a majority list vote, which completely made the oppositions invisible. Under these conditions, even if this majority bonus may seem excessive to us today, it nonetheless constituted significant progress, in terms of representation of the diversity of currents of ideas and opinions at the municipal level, at the municipal level. 'era. On the other hand, the value of the bonus established for the regional elections seems much more reasonable to us. It would correspond to around 140 or 150 seats out of 577 and would guarantee obtaining a parliamentary majority for the bloc that came first, as long as it obtains around 1/3 of the votes.
If this option were retained, would remain determine at what level these seats would be allocated ;
en bloc, at the national level, or distributed between the different constituencies. The second solution seems clearly preferable to us. Indeed, we can easily imagine the risk of a legitimacy trial that could be brought against these deputies if we compared them with their colleagues from different electoral constituencies if they came from a national list. They would not be attached to any territory. We also wonder where they could set up their electoral headquarters. Conversely, a distribution of these seats between the different constituencies would have the advantage of only having to deal with deputies from overseas departments or communities.
The next step would be to determine the exact number of these seats and their method of distribution between the different constituencies. To simplify these decisions, it would be desirable to proceed by elimination. Thus, it would first be appropriate to set aside the 11 seats for French people living abroad before distributing the remaining 566 among the overseas departments and communities, according to their population, as it results from latest census. This work done, it goes without saying that we should exclude from the distribution of seats allocated within the framework of the majority bonus the overseas departments and communities in which only one deputy is elected so that their voters can actually benefit from a representative, elected by them, within the Palais Bourbon. Logically, we should act the same with those from which only 2 deputies come so that the latter are elected by proportional representation and not that one is elected by single-member majority and the other within the framework of the bonus majority. If we refer to the current distribution of seats, we can see that there would then remain around 80 overseas departments and communities in which more than 500 seats would be filled.
There are many possible combinations to distribute the 140 to 150 seats of the majority bonus.
We could thus propose reserving 1 seat in constituencies with 3 to 5 seats, 2 in those with 6 to 9, 3 in those where 10 to 14 deputies are elected and 4 for those from which 15 come. MPs or more. With such a distribution key, 143 seats could be allocated to the winning bloc in 79 constituencies.
Such a reform could easily take place in the springand all the more easily since it does not involve any redistribution of constituencies, but only a new distribution of seats, to take into account the demographic changes which have occurred over the last 15 years. Moreover, the risk of censorship by the constitutional judge is almost non-existent. Indeed, the latter has already validated electoral reforms concerning mixed ballots in which representatives are elected in application of distinct rules depending on the number of seats concerned, such as the senatorial ones, or which provide for majority bonuses, such as the municipal ones or the regional. In fact, the only risk of censorship concerns the hypothesis in which the legislator distributes the seats of deputies between the constituencies not based on essentially demographic bases.
The return to governmental stability may not be for tomorrow, but it is within reach, all that is missing is the political will to restore it.
By Jean-Pierre GRANDEMANGE
Lecturer, Grenoble Alpes University
Member of the Legal Research Center
[1] Such a system was used for parliamentary elections in Greece until 2019: 250 seats were allocated to proportional representation, within 56 constituencies, and a bonus of 50 seats was granted to the Party which obtained the most votes. at the national level.
