Legislative 2022 live: polling stations are open throughout France, first setbacks for the majority overseas – Le Monde

The risk that the Head of State cannot rely on an absolute majority (more than 289 seats of deputies), which did not arise before the results of the first round of the legislative elections, causes fears within his camp. Emmanuel Macron’s supporters, who are afraid of “wasting time”, have tried to mobilize abstaining voters in the first round during this week, by highlighting the danger that, according to them, reigns “anarchy” and “the disorder” on the benches of the Palais Bourbon in the event of a relative majority. However, as our colleague Mariama Darame explains to us in the analysis that follows, to say that France would be ungovernable without 289 deputies supporting Mr. Macron is false, even if, inevitably, parliamentary time is lengthened and that the balances are more precarious. There have been two cases of relative majority in the past: under General de Gaulle (1958-1962), then under François Mitterrand with Michel Rocard Prime Minister (1988-1991). This did not paralyze, at the time, the action of the executive, according to Marie-Anne Cohendet, professor of constitutional law at the University of Paris-I. On the contrary, it even made it possible, in the case of Michel Rocard, to rehabilitate the culture of compromise through enlarged majorities, and this, despite the use twenty-eight times of Article 49.3. “The raison d’être of a Parliament is to negotiate, and one of the major vices of the Fifth Republic is that we do not negotiate enough, because we too often have a majority at attention. you in front of the Head of State”, explains Ms. Cohendet. In the 1958 Constitution, the president, even without a majority, has the right of dissolution, as does recourse to article 49.3, limited since the 2008 revision to one finance bill and another text per parliamentary session. . Read also: The hypothesis of a relative majority, unthought of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term