The first skirmishes between Socialist President François Mitterrand and conservative Prime Minister Jacques Chirac broke out shortly after the March 1986 parliamentary elections that led France towards “coexistence”.
Chirac defied tradition and accompanied the president to the G7 summit in Tokyo that year. After they arrived, Mitterrand barred Chirac from the highest levels of negotiations, but he later insisted on accompanying the president, along with his foreign minister, to a summit of European leaders in The Hague.
When they arrived, Mitterrand had prepared two tables for the three of them.
Further clashes followed in the following years as the two political rivals tested the system designed by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. At the time, many worried that a constitution that made no mention of power-sharing arrangements might not be able to withstand tensions between a directly elected president and a hostile government.
“There was a fear that Mitterrand would resign,” recalled Jean-Jacques Ourvois, a law professor and former justice minister who was then a young Socialist. “Mitterrand and Chirac didn’t theorize about the concept of coexistence. They found a way to do it as they went along.”
As the final round of elections called by President Emmanuel Macron begins, France’s Fifth Republic is once again bracing for the unprecedented: a potentially divisive coexistence between a centrist leader and Marine Le Pen’s far-right party that has never held power, or the collapse of a parliament so divided that no side can form a government.
“The fact is, we’re in a very uncertain time,” constitutional law professor Ann Levard said.
A far-right government has never seemed more likely than it was last Sunday, when Le Pen’s National Rally came in first with 33% of the vote. Since then, Macron’s centrist bloc and the left-leaning New Popular Front (comprised of socialists, communists and the far-left Insubordinate France) have strategically withdrawn candidates to consolidate the anti-National Rally vote in the second round.
This would likely leave the RN short of a 289-seat majority, but would make the far-right party the largest party in the National Assembly, according to opinion polls.
If that happens, Mr Macron could offer the prime ministerial position to Jordan Bardella, leader of the right-wing RN party. Whether the 28-year-old Bardella accepts the offer will depend on whether he can find allies on the right who can withstand a vote of no confidence. Ms Le Pen said this week that she would try to govern even if she was a few seats short.
Under such an arrangement, tensions could rise to levels not even reached under the Mitterrand-Chirac administrations, especially regarding foreign policy and EU issues. The first coexistence arrangement established the idea that the prime minister would be solely responsible for domestic policy, while the president, as head of the military and keeper of the nuclear codes, would represent the country abroad and lead defense and foreign policy.
“Cohabitation is not provided for in the constitution, but it can work if the parties are willing to play the game,” Lebade said.
The tacit agreement was rooted in part in Mr. Chirac’s reluctance to undermine the presidency, which he managed to appropriate for himself. His other co-conspirators as prime ministers, Édouard Balladur and Lionel Jospin, also had presidential ambitions and had no interest in undermining the head of state, says veteran diplomat Michel Duclos.
However, a government led by the RN, which is eurosceptic and protectionist in nature and less supportive than Macron in defending Ukraine against Russian aggression, would challenge this practice, which would weaken Macron’s standing abroad. The europhile president would continue to attend EU summits, but there is a risk that his decisions would be undermined by far-right French ministers at EU meetings.
Ms. Le Pen has already hinted that she has no intention of making Mr. Macron’s life easy. She pointed to Article 21 of the constitution, which says the prime minister oversees the national defense, and called Mr. Macron’s constitutional position as head of the armed forces a “prestigious position.” She also voiced her opposition to Mr. Macron’s nominee for EU commissioner, Thierry Breton, who she says should stay on for another term.
“The main difference is that the consensus on French foreign policy has collapsed, if not disappeared,” Duclos said.
While the coexistence of the far-right is now less likely, a parliamentary shutdown would also thrust the 67-year-old Fifth Republic into uncharted territory, making forming a government even harder for the left, expected to come in second in Sunday’s election barring a major upset, or for Macron’s centrist bloc.
Speculated solutions include a national unity government spanning centrist parties and possibly splitting off moderate politicians from the left and right.
There is also a possibility that a Mario Draghi-style technocratic government modelled on the former Italian cabinet of the European Central Bank president will be formed in 2021-2022.
“There is room to imagine such an outcome,” Mario Monti, who led Italy’s technocratic government from 2011 to 2013, said on Friday, though he acknowledged that “it is strange for me to talk about this in France.”
The National Assembly could learn to compromise, said Marie-Anne Koende, a law professor at the Sorbonne University. Macron has refused to try that since losing his majority in the 2022 presidential election. But she thinks it will be hard to win a majority unless he can get anti-capitalist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left Liberal Party (LFI) to agree to a “non-aggression pact.”
“It could be something like, ‘I’m not part of the government, but I’m not going to beat you for three years.’ But otherwise, it’s going to be difficult,” she said.
Hubert Vedrine, a former foreign minister who served as Mitterrand’s top adviser under Balladur, said a parliamentary limbo meant “chaos”. “People have to imagine a coalition government. Can Macron bring together MPs from the left and the right? A minority government cannot be ruled out.”
But if the impasse continues, “we are entering unknown territory, in which case Macron could face increasing pressure to resign,” he said. The first big test is the budget, which must be passed by the end of the year. If parliament fails to meet the deadline, the government may be able to use constitutional clauses to force through some measures, but “nobody really knows,” Védrine said.
Macron has ruled out stepping down until his term ends in 2027 and could keep Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s government in power as a caretaker government until an agreement can be reached. Attal vowed on Friday to stay on as prime minister “for as long as necessary.”
But once this consultation phase is over, Macron can dissolve parliament and call new elections for June 2025 at the earliest, although he is unlikely to be able to select a prime minister from his own party. How long a meticulous president who has presided over one of the most centralized presidential systems in France’s post-war history can tolerate this is a central question for the country’s political future.
“Patience is not this president’s strong suit,” said Mr. Urbois, the former justice minister. “We may find ourselves in a situation where the government is on the brink of crisis and there is no de Gaulle to come to the rescue.”
