Are the institutions of the Fifth Republic still capable of building consensus? In view of the pathetic spectacle of the debates on pensions in the National Assembly, we are authorized to doubt it… If political leaders are often elected on the promise of reform, few actually manage to bring it to an end. To the point that we are entitled to wonder about the adaptation of our institutions to the challenges of the time. This is the work undertaken by political scientist Chloé Morin in her latest book We will have tried everything (Fayard), an in-depth analysis of the springs of the French blockage. Interview.
Le Point: After the circus at the National Assembly, we have the feeling that the parliamentary debate is ultimately quite futile…
Chloé Morin: Parliamentary debates often give the feeling that things are a bit pre-ordained… They are a little less so this time, due to the majority which is only relative, which galvanizes opposition. But it is true that during the debates in the Assembly, the only real unknown was whether LR was going to support the reform or not. It’s a light suspense…
Is it a cultural issue? Could we work differently with these institutions?
Our political culture, which is violent, is reinforced by institutions. Conflict is part of French political life. Until this somewhat unusual five-year term, the institutions allowed the elected president to concentrate a large number of powers, to control the time for parliamentary debate, to control the initiative of the laws discussed… This concentration of powers gives little incentive to share it. Our institutions reinforce our refusal to compromise and impose an all or nothing logic.
The media also have their share of responsibility…
Absolutely. When a reform is discussed, the deciphering that we do is “who won? who lost ? “. It is rare for analysts to consider that the amendments which have been accepted make it possible to enrich the text. An accepted amendment is always read as a step back from the government, a kind of small defeat that would herald the big one. Reinventing a political culture is impossible. On the other hand, we can try to make it move a little, by changing the institutions… One example among others: if the legislative elections took place before the presidential election, the voters would vote less for people and more for programs… The candidates would so campaign knowing that in the end they will have to govern with others. When you have a coalition perspective, you are not campaigning at all the same as when the winner knows that he will have a majority to apply his entire program and nothing but his program.
That’s what the Germans do…
These new democratic tools have been used as political communication tools, this is the feeling of the members of the citizens’ convention like many French people. This problem of regenerating democratic debate is not taken seriously enough. Even if he was sincere, which I do not exclude, Emmanuel Macron does not have a sufficient majority to reform the institutions, which is not half a problem. Almost everyone interviewed for this book tells me that our institutions are at the end of their tether. This position, marginal ten years ago, is even shared by people on the right, traditionally more attached to the Ve…
Claiming to reform the institutions without a majority is absurd…
The government communicates regularly on the fact that the president wants to reform the institutions, but this problem could only be solved at the beginning of the first five-year term, in the continuity of the promise of a new world… It is at this moment that it had the necessary political force and legitimacy.
We are a country with a very important redistribution system, which does not prevent an abysmal collective pessimism… How do you explain this contradiction?
We are at the crossroads of two major crises. The first, of which we have just spoken, is the crisis of political deliberation. The second is that of public action. The French have the feeling that the State can no longer do anything, that politics can no longer do anything, that decisions rarely translate into concrete change, even though we pay an enormous amount of various and varied taxes. A number of politicians still believe that state reform is possible. But this – major – debate was not attacked at the root by Emmanuel Macron, who only made changes at the margins of the system.
School, hospitals, police, transport… We have the feeling that since the Covid, the state is seriously dysfunctional. However, the issue of public performance seems totally absent from political discourse. How do you explain it?
It is objectively a very difficult country to govern. Everyone I have interviewed who has exercised power says so. When you are an ordinary citizen, it is difficult to understand this complexity, it is difficult to understand why decisions that seem simple are never translated into action and in an effective way. But when we question public officials, we realize that we tend to overestimate their powers as elected officials. The responsibilities are extremely diluted in the administrative and political millefeuille. Today, it is only the mayors who manage to control decisions from A to Z… and again. At the other political levels, both come up against constant obstacles. Édouard Philippe describes very well the paralyzing effect of the accumulation of decision-making strata, checks and balances, independent authorities, standards, regulations, etc. In the end, the Fifth Republic completely froze, “ossified,” he says. It is a reality that is difficult to accept today.
How are we doing?
The urgency is first of all to tackle the crisis of public decision-making, by changing the institutions. In a country extraordinarily divided, it is not a small matter, but we will not be able to save a real diagnosis on what is dysfunctional. The second urgency is to reform the state and tackle the subject of public performance. We can no longer continue to pile up expenses while having public services that are disintegrating before our eyes.
