John Lichfield: An omnipotent presidency with only one head to roll
Published: 17 May 2007
President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to turn the aloof Elysée Palace into an all-controlling French White House. He has promised to create a new France by being a new kind of president, immersed in day-to-day government and more accountable to parliament and the press.
M. Sarkozy claims to be a "Gaulliste" but some constitutional experts believe that his more "hands on" approach will finally demolish the monarchical and semi-detached style of presidency created by Charles de Gaulle almost four decades ago.
Even before the formal exchange of power with Jacques Chirac yesterday, M. Sarkozy had taken direct charge of the formation of a new government and preliminary negotiations with trades unions and employers.
Political analysts are already wondering what breathing space will exist for a prime minister - almost certainly the former social affairs minister, François Fillon - in the Sarkozy system of government. The new president has made it clear that he intends to abolish the "opaque" approach of previous presidents of the Fifth Republic, who maintained the "pretence" that France was governed by their prime minister. President Sarkozy says that he intends to "move closer to the concrete and daily problems of the French people".
In other words, he will be in charge of everything and he will be seen to be in charge of everything.
The presidential grip on foreign and defence policy - always an Elysée prerogative - will be strengthened by the creation of a security council and security adviser, on the US model.
At the same time, M. Sarkozy has promised to be more accountable and to hide less than his predecessors behind the mysteries of the office of head of state. He plans to give regular press conferences and to make personal statements to parliament at least once a year. He has also promised to create a formal "leader of the opposition" in the National Assembly, copying the British model.
Several of these innovations will require changes to the 1958 constitution of the Fifth Republic. The constitutional expert Didier Mauss said M. Sarkozy's plans "go well beyond the established practice of the Fifth Republic and General de Gaulle, which left real autonomy to the prime minister... except in foreign policy and defence".
Another constitutional expert, Luc Rouban, suggests that - au contraire - M. Sarkozy is reasserting the primacy of the presidency in the Gaullist concept of government, something eroded during the Mitterrand and Chirac years.
He and other experts point out that a "hands on" president is not entirely new. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (president 1974-81) also interfered in most areas of government.
As a consequence, his first prime minister resigned after only two years. His name was Jacques Chirac. M. Sarkozy seems to intend, however, to go even further than M. Giscard. "The French people must know who is deciding what, when, why and in which circumstances," M. Sarkozy wrote in his book, Témoignage. The president must be seen to be in charge, he said. "Therefore, the job of the prime minister should be to co-ordinate government action."
This contradicts the letter of the Fifth Republic's constitution, which gives the leading role to the prime minister. (Article 21: "The prime minister shall direct the operation of the government.") The role of the president is to be the "guarantor of national independence, territorial integrity and observance of treaties".
M. Sarkozy is right to say that this is a sham and that Fifth Republic presidents have generally called the policy shots (except during periods of co-habitation with a prime minister from a different political party). However, no previous president has proposed to reduce the prime minister to a sort of chief of staff.
The two sides of the Sarkozy style - all-controlling but, in theory, more open - have also been seen in his formation of a new government. The president has infuriated allies within his centre-right camp by offering the foreign minister's job to a Socialist politician, Bernard Kouchner, founder of Médecins sans Frontières. By doing so, M. Sarkozy hopes to appear less tribally right-wing than he did during his election campaign. At the same time, he has, in effect, informed his centre-right colleagues that he, and he alone, is the boss and that he owes them nothing.
The government, with M. Fillon, 53, as its nominal head, is expected to be announced tomorrow.
The danger of the Sarkozy approach is that it concentrates all the power - but also all the blame - on one man. Previous presidents have been able to appease popular anger by tossing the people the head of a prime minister every couple of years. In the Sarkozy system, only one head will be visible above the parapet.
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