France will elect a new National Assembly after two votes on June 30 and July 7. For the first time in 22 years, it is becoming increasingly likely that the president and prime minister, who is the leader of the National Assembly, will not be elected by the same party.
This phenomenon is called “coexistence” and has only happened three times since France transitioned to the Fifth Republic.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Fifth Republic
France is a semi-presidential, representative parliamentary democracy with clearly defined roles for the president and prime minister.
The current political system, known as the Fifth Republic, first came into effect in 1958, replacing the previous parliamentary republic with what political scientist Jean V. Poulard calls a “dual administration” (Dual Administration and the Experience of Coexistence in France, 1990).
The Fourth Republic, which lasted from 1946 to 1958, was a parliamentary system in which power was concentrated in the lower house of parliament. In the absence of an absolute majority, coalition governments changed roughly every six months. In 12 years, France had 16 prime ministers and a total of 24 cabinets.
The new Constitution of 1958, which introduced the Fifth Republic, restored executive power. Since 1962, the French president has been directly elected by popular vote, and the prime minister is the leader of the largest party/coalition in the National Assembly.
President vs Prime Minister
The President is elected for a five-year term and serves as Head of State and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The President controls and exercises all decisions regarding foreign policy and defense. Until 2000, the President’s term of office was seven years, but this was subsequently reduced to five years.
In contrast, Parliament, headed by the Prime Minister, is responsible for all domestic policy decisions. Article 21 of the French Constitution gives the Prime Minister the power “to direct the actions of the Government”. The Cabinet is appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister himself cannot be removed from office by the President, but he can ask for his resignation. The President can be impeached by Parliament for deliberately violating the Constitution or domestic law. Impeachment requires a two-thirds majority vote in both Houses of the French Parliament or in a joint sitting.
Cohabitation in France
This system can lead to a situation where the French parliament is dominated by a coalition/party opposed to the president. In such a case, the president is obliged to appoint as prime minister the leader of the opposition party who enjoys the support of a parliamentary majority.
Cohabitation is extremely rare in France and has historically been controversial: there have been only three such cases during the Fifth Republic: under Socialist President François Mitterrand and the right-wing RPR/UDF coalition government under Prime Minister Jacques Chirac (1986-88), under President Mitterrand and Prime Minister Édouard Balladur, who also led the RPR/UDF coalition government (1993-95), and under President Chirac and Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (1997-2002).
Each of these periods was marked by administrative deadlock and friction between the executive and the state. In 1986, President Mitterrand refused to sign the denationalization ordinance proposed by the Chirac government, which would have ensured the privatization of more than 60 industrial groups, reversing the achievements of the previous socialist government. The law was eventually adopted as a bill and passed by parliament, but it allowed President Mitterrand to reassert his position as a left-wing leader.
The upcoming elections are likely to show a similar outcome: all opinion polls give President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal-centrist Renaissance party’s Ensemble coalition a slim chance of victory, trailing both Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rally National and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-leaning New Popular Front.
Future votes
The French parliament is a bicameral legislature consisting of an upper house (the Senate) and a lower house (the National Assembly). The upcoming elections will see members of the National Assembly elected for 577 seats, including 13 overseas territories and 11 constituencies representing French people living abroad.
A party needs 289 seats to win an absolute majority.
The election will be held in two rounds. In the first round, scheduled for June 30, candidates who do not receive 12.5% of the local registered vote will be eliminated. In addition, candidates who receive 50% of the popular vote and receive at least 25% of the local vote will automatically win some precincts.
The second round of voting, scheduled for July 7, will see a close race with two to four candidates, at which point alliances usually become clear.
