When you come down from your perch, it’s easier to open doors. A year after his electoral defeat in the legislative elections, the former President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand gave a political interview At Figaro Sunday. The ex-minister, who remained close to Emmanuel Macron, has a nightmare at the idea of seeing his foal hand over the keys to the Elysée Palace in 2027 to a new resident. To the point of wanting to lift a taboo?
Since the constitutional reform of 2008, a president cannot be elected more than twice consecutively. “Our Constitution says so. However, personally, I regret anything that restricts the free expression of popular sovereignty. The limitation of the presidential mandate in time, the non-accumulation of mandates, etc. All of this corsets our public life in rules which limit the free choice of citizens”, judges the former Breton parliamentarian in the columns of the Figaro.
Limiting the number of presidential terms, not a debate in major democracies
Ferrand puts on the table a debate not really discussed since the entry into force of the measure. “In most major democracies, there are term limits. We, Democrats, are criticized for the countries in which you can remain at the head of a country for 40 years. In all the States where this kind of measure was discussed, it was considered that it was an attack on democracy, ”recalls Michel Lascombe, specialist in constitutional law.
For Arnaud Teyssier, historian, specialist in Gaullism and the Fifth Republic, the limitation of mandates imagined by Nicolas Sarkozy in the constitutional reform could have been designed to rebalance a new power of the president. “The reform provided for the right for the Head of State to speak before the two Assemblies (Congress), in return, the consecutive mandates were limited so as not to give the impression of an excessive presidentialization of the regime. “The mandatory end of the cycle after two terms also makes it possible” to give total freedom to the president, even if it means taking unpopular measures “without risking being sanctioned at the ballot box, details Michel Lascombe.
The tool not to “rein in” sovereignty, “is the referendum”
The transition from seven to five years in 2000 and the reversal of the calendar, with an election of the president just before the deputies, upset the political practice of the Fifth Republic, much more than the limitation of terms, continues Arnaud Teyssier. “We blame the regime for no longer working because we don’t use its tools. The system became unbalanced when the president had to enter the partisan game, specifies the expert. If Ferrand does not want to curb the free expression of sovereignty, there is a tool for that, it is the referendum. »
In fact, a reform of the Constitution on the initiative of the President requires obtaining 3/5th of the votes of the parliamentarians meeting in Congress. Since the beginning of the Fifth Republic, even before the entry into force of the limitation of the number of consecutive mandates, no head of state has been elected three times. “Only two presidents have completed two full terms (Chirac, Mitterrand), and again Chirac has had a five-year term. Running for a third term does not seem realistic, we are not in a monarchy. »
An early walker, Richard Ferrand surely got what he wanted in the space of a few hours. Launch a trial balloon inexpensively. Obtain media takeovers, media condemnations in the opposition,Olivier Faure To Mathilde Panot. Then, backpedal by denouncing “a false controversy”. A good recipe to talk about him, while some rumors send him to Matignon, in the event of a reshuffle.