“The head of state, because he believed himself to be all-powerful, is more weakened than ever” | EUROtoday

IExactly half a century in the past, firstly of the presidency of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the political scientist Maurice Duverger revealed a piece entitled The Republican Monarchy or How Democracies Create Kings (Robert Laffont, 1974). He already described there, however with out decrying it, the evolution of the V^e Republic in direction of a semi-presidential regime, based mostly since 1962 on the election of the President of the Republic by common suffrage and on the very fact of a majority. Since that point, the autocratic drift of presidential apply has confirmed his analysis.

The toxic fruits of this drift have multiplied underneath the presidency of Emmanuel Macron. Like his predecessors, all elected in a type of incantatory enthusiasm for the providential man, he was fast to expertise the shame which inevitably follows the state of grace when one expects all the pieces from the savior. This state of shame took notably violent types in opposition to him, as a result of expectations that the promise of “new world” had given rise to among the many French. And we query a presidential apply perceived, rightly or wrongly, as authoritarian and reduce off from the expectations of the French.

Against the backdrop of a fractured and apprehensive society, Macron-bashing seems to be a rejection of the “republican monarchy”. And we arrive at this paradox that, on this regime designed by de Gaulle round presidential pre-eminence, the top of state, as a result of he believed himself to be omnipotent, is extra weakened than ever.

Change Republic?

The present political disaster is a evident illustration of this paradox. The Jupiterian president is in the present day thought-about the principle individual accountable for the political chaos, for having misused the constitutional software of dissolution. The following sequence, dedicated to the seek for a brand new prime minister, as soon as once more aroused criticism of the monarchical nature of the presidential method.

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