Regardless of the outcome of the vote by the two chambers of Parliament assembled in Congress on July 21, the draft constitutional law on the reform of the institutions of the Fifth Republic will have been born in pain. Unless there is a very unlikely historical last-minute compromise, this 24th revision of the Constitution could, in the best-case scenario envisioned by the Élysée, barely exceed the required three-fifths majority of votes cast, that is, due to the vacancy of one seat in each of the two chambers, a majority of 544 out of 906 voters. This election, with a margin of “four or five votes” according to recent predictions, will be perceived, at worst, as a presidential disavowal, at best, as a conditional support: in both cases, a negative impression for a text that nonetheless creates nine new provisions and modifies 38 articles of the 1958 Constitution.
No reform is ever perfect. The one initiated by the Head of State nonetheless has the merit of initiating, for the benefit of Parliament and the citizen, considerable shifts in traditionally sovereign areas of public action. Gaullist in spirit, this project, which could have appeared as one of Nicolas Sarkozy’s major initiatives, will ultimately be remembered for the bargains that will remind older generations of the dark moments of the Fourth Republic. Between the “man of June 18” and some of his successors, the president indeed gives the impression of not having been able to choose: faced with the announced difficulties of the adoption procedure, he refused to imitate Georges Pompidou or Jacques Chirac, who, respectively in 1973 and 2000, preferred to halt or postpone a controversial or uncertain consultation. But he also did not entirely follow the “General” by opting not to bypass Congress to “take the matter to the people.” Yet, judging by the latest poll conducted by Ifop on July 20, the public overwhelmingly supports the constitutional revision.
Faithful to a sometimes all-or-nothing, if not provocative, strategy of “rupture,” the Head of State prefers to risk a frontal clash with the national representation. With, as a final consequence, a series of last-minute negotiations from which neither the majority nor the opposition will emerge enhanced. The president’s obsession with recognition drives him to multiply particular maneuvers with each recalcitrant Deputy and Senator to forcibly push his reform through at any cost, countered by a heavy project deficit from the Socialist Party, which is disoriented and waiting for the Reims Congress, caught between multiple personal poles, incapable of nationwide proposals, preferring to retreat into intransigent opposition.
In these meticulous calculations, the Élysée finds itself reduced to seeking the support of the Radical Left, relying on Jack Lang’s personal opening approach, negotiating with majority or opposition Deputies and Senators with hopes of future ministerial positions or properly remunerated parliamentary missions. Or threatening Chirac or Villepinist parliamentarians with electoral wrath during future nominations and redistricting: such are the inappropriate procedures for the nature of a constitutional revision that requires the “conviction” of the nation’s representatives.
The stakes become evident: this constitutional revision, intended to evolve the political framework and practice in France, finds itself trapped in a quarrel over the presidential temperament and style. Between the announcement of the appointment of the public television president, the provocative remark on strikes, and the blunder regarding the need for the Irish to vote again on Europe, Nicolas Sarkozy’s claimed impulse for control has led to focusing expectations, doubts, and discontent on him—to the point of facilitating the opponents’ game, who maintain confusion about this reform between necessity and whim. In a way, an over-president victimized by his “success.”
