The proposal has gained popularity since the presentation of the pension reform bill. Internet users call for the dismissal of Emmanuel Macron by the application of article 68 of the Constitution. A false information propagator account on Facebook, Oliv Oliv, called on January 11 for the removal of “King” Macron, which would “block pension reform”. For this, he promotes the signing of a petition on the site of the National Assembly.
This petition, if it reaches 500,000 signatories, would oblige the deputies to debate in the National Assembly, he explains. (Which is incorrect, the Conference of Presidents of the Assembly can decide to organize this debate, but they are not obliged to do so and it should be added that the petitioners must come from at least 30 departments or communities overseas).
Frexit supporter François Asselineau also supports the idea of impeachment in a video viewed more than 500,000 times on YouTube. In a tweet, he indicates that the French “are concerned about the mental health of the president”, based on an erroneous interpretation of the President’s remarks on the subject of a “serious depression”: “Is his condition not a “case of dereliction of his duties manifestly incompatible with his mandate” which justifies dismissal according to Article 68 of the Constitution? “, he argues.
In the same vein, several viral tweets, shared between 250 and 1,000 times, defend this idea of dismissal in the name of the reintegration of caregivers, against pension reform or rising energy prices.
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But it is highly unlikely that the head of state will be removed from office in this way. Article 68 of the Constitution provides that a President of the Republic may be dismissed “only in the event of a breach of his duties manifestly incompatible with the exercise of his mandate”. What do we mean by this formula? “The spirit is not to prosecute the President of the Republic for a political question, underlines Véronique Champeil-Desplats, professor of public law at the University of Paris-Nanterre. Something more is needed. »
For Jean-Eric Gicquel, professor of constitutional and parliamentary law at Rennes-1 University, wanting to dismiss Emmanuel Macron to block pension reform is even an “absurd” request. “The president has the constitutional right to decide to initiate a reform, he underlines, and is protected in this by article 67 of the Constitution, which tells us that he is absolutely not responsible for the acts carried out as head of state. Under no circumstances can we consider that pushing for a reform is a failure in one’s duties. »
A precedent with François Hollande
In which cases could this article 68 apply then? “That’s always the big question,” comments Véronique Champeil-Desplats. There is no definition, it’s the big blur. It is the High Court, that is to say the National Assembly and the Senate, which, when it meets, will decide on a case-by-case basis what these grounds might be. The spirit is not to leave in place a president who would be guilty of breaches of the Constitution. »
Since the constitutional revision of 2007, a single resolution was tabled by deputies. In 2016, 79 LR deputies demanded the dismissal of François Hollande because of his confidences in journalists on “national defense”, revealed in the book A president shouldn’t say that. The Bureau of the National Assembly, which examined the motion for a resolution and checked its admissibility, rejected it. He felt that she was inadmissiblee, because “not justifying reasons likely to characterize a breach”.
“There is no pre-established list”
“All the difficulty of this kind of legal category is that there is no pre-established list, adds Jean-Eric Gicquel. We must, at some point, consider that we are faced with a breach incompatible with the performance of duties. ” The April commission report in 2002, in preparation for this constitutional revision, drew the contours of these shortcomings: they could be private situations, such as murder or another serious crime committed by the Head of State or behavior contrary to dignity of office.
It could also include an irregular use of constitutional prerogatives such as a dissolution of the National Assembly not respecting the rules fixed by the Constitution, an irregular recourse to the full powers of article 16, the refusal to promulgate the laws, to sign the decrees. “It is a question of knowing if the one who embodies a political power has come to break the link which identified him with this power”, wrote the rapporteurs at the time.
A deliberately “very complex” process
The resolution filing process is “heavy, very complex”, also notes Véronique Champeil-Desplats, in order “to prevent a simple political disagreement from leading to dismissal”. It is also a “compensation for the opening of the responsibility of the President of the Republic”. Because, before 2007, it could only be committed for crimes of high treason. “It was a question of demilitarizing this notion so as not only to confine it in a virtual way to cases of relations with the outside world, but also to cases of breaches of constitutional requirements”, she analyzes.
The motion for a resolution for dismissal must thus be triggered by elected representatives of one of the two assemblies (the National Assembly or the Senate) and signed by at least one tenth of its members, ie 58 deputies or 35 senators. She must be motivated. The office of the National Assembly then examines the admissibility of the request. It is at this level that the proposal for the dismissal of François Hollande stopped.
If the office had validated it, it would then have been examined by the competent examination committee. This stage is passed, it must be debated by the National Assembly or the Senate, and adopted by a two-thirds majority of their members. Then, the proposal is transmitted to the other assembly which must decide within fifteen days. If both assemblies pass it, the High Court must meet and rule within a month. Here again, a two-thirds majority is required (i.e. 617 parliamentarians) to pronounce the dismissal of the President of the Republic.