France’s Shifting Constitutional Landscape
France is experiencing a major shift in its constitutional and political landscape. After weeks of uncertainty, President Emmanuel Macron has now appointed Michel Barnier as Prime Minister, sparking new protests against Macron’s actions since the election. From a constitutional perspective, it is becoming clear that the President cannot simultaneously serve as an impartial guarantor of institutions on one hand and the most powerful political actor on the other. While the country’s presidentialist tradition is not over, the era of fait majoritaire — a cornerstone of the stability of the French system — has ended.
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Konfrontation, Kohabitation, Koalition
Die Parlamentswahlen in Frankreich 2024 haben bisher wenig Konstantes, sondern vor allem Unerwartetes hervorgebracht. Dieser Artikel versucht, das verfassungsrechtliche und politische Geflecht in einem Vierschritt zu entwirren: von der Konfrontationslage zur Kohabitation und Koalitionsbildung sowie zuletzt zu den Konsequenzen für die Europäische Union. Die französischen Parlamentswahlen haben das Land in ein verfassungsrechtliches Spannungsfeld geführt, das die politischen Akteure zwingt, Koalitionen neu zu erlernen, während dabei die europäische Stabilität durch die innerfranzösischen Machtkämpfe auf die Probe gestellt werden wird.
Continue reading >>The French Fifth Republic Enters Uncharted Waters
After yesterday's elections, the French Fifth Republic steps into uncharted waters. In the short term, France’s role at the heart of EU integration and as a key supporter of Ukraine remains steadfast. This stability is impressive, given most predictions. However, this new phase of French politics will be fragmented and fluid, demanding a recalibration to find a stable equilibrium while countering the far right. French moderate parties face a tough road ahead. Their success or failure will not only shape France’s future but also reverberate beyond its borders.
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The Limits of Contemporary French Constitutionalism
French President Emmanuel Macron’s dissolution of France’s National Assembly (its lower house of parliament) on June 9th took many by surprise. The results of the snap election’s first round suggest that Macron’s risky gamble—an attempt at turning the tide after his party suffered a major blow in the European Parliament elections—backfired majestically. However, more than a political setback for Macron, and outside of the many (highly warranted) concerns as to what harmful policies a new far-right-dominated parliament could pass, the move also raises many interesting constitutional law questions. Whatever the outcome of the second round on Sunday, July 7, France will face unprecedented circumstances that are likely to put the country’s 1958 constitution to the test.
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France’s Legislative Elections and the Uncertain Path to 2027
As most expected, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) was the clear winner of the first round of the snap legislative elections in France, unexpectedly called by President Macron three weeks ago. Le Pen’s party, allied with a rump Les Républicains, led by Eric Ciotti, obtained 33.1% of the votes. A coalition including moderate and radical left parties, the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), came second with 28.1%, while the centrist parties supporting Gabriel Attal’s government received 21.3%. The mainstream right Républicains who refused to ally with the RN stopped at 6.6%. The RN confirmed its strong showing at last month’s European elections and more than doubled its votes in comparison to the last legislative elections of April 2022. Yet, an RN-led government is not a foregone conclusion.
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Ist die V. Republik sterblich?
Bei den Europawahlen am 9. Juni 2024 wurde der rechtsextreme Rassemblement national in fast allen französischen Départements stärkste Kraft und erhielt mehr als doppelt so viele Stimmen wie das Lager von Präsident Macron. Noch am Wahlabend löste Macron die Nationalversammlung auf und kündigte den ersten Gang der Neuwahlen für den 30. Juni an. Er zwingt hiermit Frankreich dazu, seine jahrhundertelange Suche nach der richtigen Regierung(-sform) fortzusetzen. Es ist zweifelhaft, ob es nach dem zweiten Wahlgang am 7. Juli 2024 das Regierungssystem der V. Republik noch so geben wird, wie wir es kennen.
Continue reading >>A Comparative Analysis between the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the French and German Legislation
This blog post offers an initial comparative glimpse of the most important changes that the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) will bring for the respective mandatory human rights and environmental (HREDD) legislation in Germany and France. While both the French Duty of Vigilance Law and the German Supply Chain Act already require effective HREDD, the CSDDD goes a long way in strengthening the requirements and bringing them more in line with international standards.
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The Electoral Reform in New Caledonia as a Blessing in Disguise
The constitutional amendment recently examined by the French Parliament would allow French citizens, residing in New Caledonia for at least ten years, to take part in local elections. Prompted by President Macron, this electoral reform has led to massive riots in recent weeks involving supporters and opponents of independence for this territory of the French Republic. Local representatives fear that this reform will place the Kanak – the archipelago’s autochthonous people – in an even more inferior position vis-à-vis loyalist militants. Nevertheless, this reform should guarantee better representation of the population of New Caledonia and thereby guarantee the right to vote more widely, in line with the democratic principles of the French Republic.
Continue reading >>On Kanaks and Caldoches
Over the past week, the French electoral reform in New Caledonia precipitated into violent unrest. Although the French government lifted the state of emergency on Tuesday morning, in an attempt to initiate a process of de-escalation and to renew the dialogue with the independence movement, the reform will eventually move forward. Henceforth, France will further entrench its influence in the South Pacific and effectively deny the Kanak people to achieve their desired self-determination.
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The European Court of Human Rights’ Kick Into Touch
On April 9, 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled on three applications concerning the fight against climate change and the positive obligations of the signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in this respect. This blog post analyzes the Carême decision in which the Court declared inadmissible an application brought by a former mayor of a French town on the grounds of incompatibility ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (§ 88). In my view, this is an ill-developed decision, which could dangerously imply a regression in environmental matters.
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Between Legal Deficiencies and Political Restraint
Traditionally, it is Germany, not France, which is presented as the model example of militant democracy. Among the various provisions of the German Basic Law, Article 21 (2), setting out the procedure for banning political parties, is perhaps one of the clearest expressions of the basic constitutional decision in favour of a streitbare Demokratie. Nevertheless, setting concepts aside and examining empirical data, it is interesting to note that Germany has banned fewer political parties than France since the end of the Second World War.
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Enshrining Abortion Rights in the French Constitution
On International Women’s Day 2024, President Emmanuel Macron signed an amendment, that enshrines abortion rights in the French Constitution. Abortion is now a constitutionally “guaranteed freedom” for women in France: but constitutionally guaranteeing this freedom is also — if not even more — a call-out to the rest of the world. By constitutionalizing the right to abortion, French parliamentarians and government officials aimed to signal this commitment to the global community, with a particular emphasis on the United States.
Continue reading >>Pushing Back
The CJEU has pending before it a crucial case on the criminalisation of seeking asylum and assistance to those seeking protection. At this critical juncture, this blog post highlights a sample of important decisions in which courts, giving effect to constitutional and international legal principles, set legal limits on this form of criminalisation. These cases reflect not only the appropriate legal limits, but also acknowledge the character of irregular migration and smuggling. Rather than framing individuals as dangerous illegal migrants and exploitative smugglers, they reassert the humanity of both those in search of refuge and opportunity, and those that assist them.
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Rethinking the Law and Politics of Migration
2023 was, to put it mildly, a terrible year for (im)migrants and their human rights. With the declared end of the Covid pandemic came an end to the exceptional border policies it had led to which had further restricted already weakened migrants’ rights. Yet governments have largely chosen to replace them with legal frameworks that incorporated many of the same rights negating policies and ideas- except for this time they put them on a permanent legal basis. Liberated from their initial emergency rationales, asylum bans have now joined outsourcing and overpopulated mass detention camps as standard methods of migration governance. What is the role of legal scholarship and discourse at a time where governments seem increasingly comfortable to eschew many long-standing legal rules and norms, often with majority support?
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Heightening the Repressive Dynamic
The new French Immigration Act was promulgated and published on 26th January 2024, the day after the Conseil Constitutionnel decision which censored 35 provisions in one of its longest decisions to date. The Conseil chose to emphasize the Constitution’s procedural requirements, while largely avoiding substantive analysis of the Act’s drastic reduction of foreigners’ rights. Indeed, it asserted the constitutionality or remained silent on many provisions that undercut foreigner’s rights. The Act as promulgated thereby constitutes the most repressive text since 1945 and heightens a migration restrictive dynamic.
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Mit der Verfassung spielt man nicht!
Am 25. Januar 2024 hat der französische Verfassungsrat zahlreiche Normen des neuen Einwanderungsrechts für verfassungswidrig erklärt (Nr. 2023-863 DC). Im Kontext dieses Normkontrollverfahrens zeigte sich eine Regierung, die den Verfassungsverstoß als Mittel zur Mehrheitsfindung nutzte. Zugleich scheute das Verfassungsgericht die inhaltliche Prüfung und stützte sich fast ausschließlich auf Verfahrensmängel. Beides hilft Bestrebungen von rechts, eine gerichtliche Kontrolle staatlicher Maßnahmen zukünftig einzuschränken. Noch bleibt Zeit, die Verfassungskultur in Frankreich zu stärken.
Continue reading >>Constitutionalizing the right to abortion is not political opportunism
Recently, Baptiste Charvin wrote on this blog that the right to abortion has become the subject of political instrumentalization in France. In his view, it illustrates a general phenomenon of 'constitutional desacralization' and underlines the division the French people are experiencing, 'despite being governed by a Constitution that enshrines a set of values that should be shared by all.' I argue that the French parliamentary debate on the right to abortion is anything but a phenomenon of recent political opportunism. Instead, it reflects – for once – a majority opinion, not the division of French society.
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Is France Desacralizing its Constitution?
From 2002 to the present day, hundreds of constitutional bills have been proposed by delegates in Parliament, with forty of them being introduced within a year following the renewal of the Assemblée Nationale after the 2022 legislative elections. Each bill contains unique and far-reaching provisions. The proposals illustrate a shift within secondary constituent power, which no longer perceives the Constitution as a sacred text, the supreme standard of the French legal order, but as a wish list, and as an object of political communication subject to trivial media considerations.
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