Francois Mori/Associated Press
Romantic evening strolls by the Seine, fragrant cafes and boulangeries, political crises and popular unrest—what is more quintessentially French than these classic Parisian experiences?
France, one of the birthplaces of modern democracy, remains a significant linchpin of global liberal democracy. Following a long and complicated political history, France’s democratic system remains vibrant and free. Yet as the Fifth Republic approaches its seventh decade, not all is well in the mature European democracy. Facing a surging far-right movement, a series of government crises, and rising public disillusionment, France’s democracy is increasingly under pressure on all fronts.
President Emmanuel Macron, now in his eighth year in the Élysée Palace, has repeatedly emphasised the need to fight for liberal democracy. At the same time, however, Macron has abused constitutional grey zones and has displayed disdain towards the will of the French electorate. Rather than upholding and defending French democracy, Macron has centralised power within his own hands, heavily using the Constitution’s controversial Article 49.3 to force through his agenda without legislative debate. Following a failed electoral gamble in the 2024 snap elections, Macron refused to nominate a Prime Minister from the triumphant left-wing bloc, instead nominating an obscure conservative in a stunning rejection of French political tradition. Now, France finds itself in political disarray and a crisis of governance. Amidst significant challenges to France’s democracy, Macron’s abdication of commitment to democratic norms constitutes a serious threat to France’s democracy.
Constitutional Gameplay and Article 49.3
France’s storied democratic tradition dates back to at least the late eighteenth century, in which the French Revolution brought about Europe’s first radical experiment with popular democracy. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, France’s unique historical experience of political tumult, foreign invasions, revolutions and counter-revolutions developed a political culture and set of institutional arrangements unique to itself. Since 1958, France has been governed by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, which establishes a Semi-Presidential system with an unusually powerful Presidency.
Buried within the 1958 Constitution is Article 49.3, a controversial rule which allows the government to pass a bill through the National Assembly without a vote. In triggering 49.3, the Prime Minister gives the Assembly twenty-four hours to table and win a no confidence motion, otherwise the proposed law passes without debate or a vote. Though the gamble is de-jure a Prime Ministerial prerogative, Macron has been influential in using 49.3 to force through unpopular measures like France’s massive pension reform without legislative debate. Though technically constitutional, Macron’s heavy use of 49.3 to pass major legislation demonstrates an expansion of executive power at the expense of the legislature’s power “[putting] the extent of democratic representation into question.” By abusing 49.3, Macron has rammed through major policy priorities without public parliamentary debate or legislative votes, undermining the fundamental balance between the executive and the legislature.
Electoral Gambles
By 2024, Macron had become a decisively unpopular President. The 2024 EU Parliamentary Elections in France saw the far-right RN party surge ahead of Macron’s centrists, with the French electorate swinging by over eight percent to the RN. Scholars of right-wing populism (from Jan-Werner Müller to Steven Levitsky) have demonstrated how the far-right can capitalise on electoral victories to challenge institutions, comprising a legitimate threat to democracy. Citing the surging RN as a threat to France, Macron dissolved parliament and called for new national elections.
Macron had gambled that his call for snap elections could shock the electorate into empowering his liberal Ensemble coalition and sidelining the far-right. Instead, Macron’s electoral gambit brought political paralysis, as the left-wing NFP surged to become the largest faction in the Assembly, followed closely by Macron’s shrunken Ensemble and the enlarged RN. According to French political tradition, Macron should have appointed the Prime Ministerial candidate from the largest political coalition in Parliament, the left-wing NFP. This kind of “cohabitation,” where a President and PM from different parties share power, has occurred three times in France’s history.
Rather than accepting the results of his own snap election, Macron circumvented the victorious NFP to handpick his preferred centre-right PM, Michel Barnier from the fifth largest party, hobbling together a fragile coalition while ignoring the will of the voters. Predictably, France’s Barnier government collapsed spectacularly on December 5th after only three months, launching the country once more into political chaos.
French Democracy at a Crossroads
As France enters the political unknown, without a stable government or a 2025 budget in sight, Macron’s legacy increasingly appears to be one in which respect for democratic norms have given way to one President’s egoism and thirst for power. Macron has been unable to build a solid coalition in Parliament capable of passing his neoliberal agenda the democratic way. Instead—Macron has played Constitutional hardball and aggrandised his own executive authority, employing strong-arming and bait-and-switch political tactics to preserve and expand his own power.
Some supporters of the President insist that while Macron’s actions have been anti-democratic, they are in the service of protecting France’s democracy from larger, more sinister threats. This fallacy, that democratic norms must be curbed or suspended to “save the nation,” is not only dangerous, it’s a classic harbinger of severe democratic decline. Macron has failed to uphold two basic principles of liberal democracy: respecting the outcome of elections and allowing the legislature to freely debate and pass laws. Whether Macron’s despotism is enlightened or not is irrelevant. For French democracy to remain robust, it requires Presidents who will nominate Prime Ministers from the largest duly elected party, and will allow the people’s legislature to freely and publicly vote on legislation.
Macron and his supporters might insist that since the use of 49.3 and the appointment of Barnier as PM were within Macron’s Constitutional right, they do not constitute any threat to democracy. Regardless of the Constitution’s ambiguity, the French electorate clearly demanded a change in power. Macron’s now-failed bid to hold control of the cabinet exceeded his Constitutional role as arbitrator, and risks irreversibly jeopardising faith in French democracy. French legal experts have asserted that by delaying the appointment of a PM for two months—the longest gap in the Fifth Republic’s history—and encroaching on the authority of the legislature, Macron has practised executive aggrandisement and has set dangerous political precedent.
Democracy requires that institutions making laws depend on votes and other expressions of preference by the citizenry. Although the left-wing NFP did not win an absolute majority in the Assembly, they were firmly the largest bloc in the body, and thus expected to share power with Macron under Cohabitation. In a democracy, norms matter. Though the use of 49.3 is not new, Macron’s overuse of the amendment for major legislation is a clear break with democratic tradition.
Presidency and Empire
Napoleon Bonaparte once said “in politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.” Centuries later, the French Emperor’s quote evidently continues to inspire President Macron as he attempts to govern a polarised and gridlocked political ecosystem. Though Macron the candidate campaigned on political reform and good governance, Macron the President has brought about a series of political crises of his own creation, dismissing and stubbornly subverting democratic norms throughout his tenure. Amidst a series of national and regional crises, France deserves a President who will reaffirm democratic principles and uphold the norms and traditions of French democracy. If France’s democracy hopes to weather the storm, it certainly will need a new captain.
I appreciate your exploration of a less frequently discussed threat to France’s democracy. Had you asked me before reading this post who (or what) is the great threat to French democracy, I doubt that Macron would have made my list – but this blog post has made me reconsider!
In my mind, your argument hinges on a key question in the study of democratic erosion: does the flaunting of democratic norms constitute an attack on democracy? As you noted in your post, Macron has not forced changes to French institutions or violated constitutional provisions – he has merely used his established powers as president to pursue his policy agenda and maximize his political power in the legislature. He himself was democratically elected to execute on his policy platform, so can he truly be labeled antidemocratic for pursuing his agenda by playing dirty politics within constitutional means?
Though I am not sure I support your claim that Macron’s acts fit the definition of executive aggrandizement, as there have been no constitutional changes to the country’s checks and balances, I agree with your assertion that these actions are setting a “dangerous political precedent” that create a more favorable environment for democratic erosion. Macron’s refusal to cohabitate with the left-wing party and his excessive use of 49.3 may embolden future presidents to employ increasingly hardball tactics – and it is this very tit-for-tat escalation that could result in attempts to pursue actual executive aggrandizement, to the detriment of French democracy. As a result, I will definitely be keeping a closer eye on Macron from now on!