A leftist coalition, the New Popular Front, has won the most seats in the 2024 French legislative election, beating back a far-right surge but failing to win a majority.
Can someone ELI5 this system of government for me. I’m in the US where I’ve got a pretty good grasp on our Democratic Republic but I get a little confused by places that have President and Prime Minister. Also what does it mean when they say something like “Keir Starmer will try to form a government….”
I am French, so I am not going to answer to the last part about Keir Starmer, but I can help with your first question.
The executive branch of the French government is two-headed, with a President and a Prime Minister.
The President is the head of state, as such they are elected by universal suffrage, and are viewed as an arbitrator. The President is the commander in chief of the French military, and acts as the head of the French diplomacy.
The Prime Minister is the chief of the government. The PM is nominated by the President, to form a government or cabinet of several ministers. Together they are responsible, before the parliament, of implementing policies in the best interest of the nation. The parliament can revoke the PM and its government.
That’s where it gets messy :
if the parliament’s majority party is the presidential party, then the President can nominate a political ally as Prime Minister, and in practice, the center of gravity of the President-Prime Minister couple will move towards the president, who will be free to enact his policies.
However, if the majority party in the parliament is opposed to the President, then the President can only nominate a PM from the majority, otherwise the parliament will promptly revoke the PM. This situation is called a cohabitation, and it happened only 3 times under the 5th French republic. With a President and PM in opposition, the center of gravity is usually tilted towards the PM.
Now what happens when there is no clear majority party or coalition in the parliament? That has never happened before, not at the scale we are witnessing today. And there are no clear guidelines : presumably, the President will nominate a PM from the party that came out in the lead in these parliamentary election. But if all the other parties reject the new PM, they could oust them. A multi-party coalition could be created to reach the absolute majority, but lately the major political formations have been sternly opposed.
The coming days are going to be very interesting, and a good stress-test for our institutions.
The President is elected by the people, what you call popular vote I believe. The President then nominates the Prime Minister from whatever party holds the majority in the Parliament. In this election, it isn’t the presidential party that got the majority, so Attal (the exiting Prime Minister from the presidential party) resigns.
Macron could also resign I guess, since it was his idea to dissolve the Parliament in the first place, but it’s pretty uncommon.
Note that this is for the French system. Starmer is British and has to deal with whatever dumbster fire of a system they have on his side of the Channel
President is elected, assembly is elected, president picks a prime minister among the majority party in the assembly (hopefully the same as his own, since the assembly gets to confirm the pick), prime minister picks a government (picks the ministers in their own party) with the president’s blessings. In case the majority party is opposite the president, the president doesn’t get much of a choice, as we know the majority party will only accept ministers on their side.
When the assembly is reelected, the prime minister typically offers their resignation regardless of the results (we are here), and the president can accept it or refuse it (we expect Macron to refuse, or at least delay it until the end of the Olympics, which makes the most sense, but Attal will almost certainly be gone after the Olympics). Then a new government is formed. A prime minister usually gets a couple governments under their belt until the president gets a new prime minister. Attal got shafted by the early dissolution since he was only here for a few months.
Macron is the president and head of state. He’s elected directly by the citizens of France.
Attal is (was) the prime minister and head of government. He’s elected by the members of parliament. He’s appointed by the president but needs majority support in parliament.
“To form a government” usually means that someone is tasked by the head of state (president or king) to come up with a group of people (cabinet) that has majority support in the house(s) of parliament. That’s easy for Starmer when Labour has a majority. In other countries like the Netherlands, Germany, or Italy, that usually requires a coalition.
Hello, did not understand everything so sorry in advance if i say anything dumb
In France, we have a President, elected by every adult citizen. In theory, he does not lead the country, and chooses a Prime Minister for this task, who then comes up with a government. In practice though, the President (Macron for now) has a lot more power over the PM because he can revoke and name another Prime Minister. And as the Assembly also have the power to revoke PM, President generally chooses someone that the majority in the Assembly will accept, to avoid instability.
So currently, Macron is the President and holds practical power over politics, Prime Minister is currently Attal, and is kinda the second in hand of Macron, and as the Assembly seems to change right now, Macron will probably choose someone else as PM, probably someone from the left.
Prime Minister Attal? I thought that was Macron?
Can someone ELI5 this system of government for me. I’m in the US where I’ve got a pretty good grasp on our Democratic Republic but I get a little confused by places that have President and Prime Minister. Also what does it mean when they say something like “Keir Starmer will try to form a government….”
I am French, so I am not going to answer to the last part about Keir Starmer, but I can help with your first question.
The executive branch of the French government is two-headed, with a President and a Prime Minister.
The President is the head of state, as such they are elected by universal suffrage, and are viewed as an arbitrator. The President is the commander in chief of the French military, and acts as the head of the French diplomacy.
The Prime Minister is the chief of the government. The PM is nominated by the President, to form a government or cabinet of several ministers. Together they are responsible, before the parliament, of implementing policies in the best interest of the nation. The parliament can revoke the PM and its government.
That’s where it gets messy :
if the parliament’s majority party is the presidential party, then the President can nominate a political ally as Prime Minister, and in practice, the center of gravity of the President-Prime Minister couple will move towards the president, who will be free to enact his policies.
However, if the majority party in the parliament is opposed to the President, then the President can only nominate a PM from the majority, otherwise the parliament will promptly revoke the PM. This situation is called a cohabitation, and it happened only 3 times under the 5th French republic. With a President and PM in opposition, the center of gravity is usually tilted towards the PM.
Now what happens when there is no clear majority party or coalition in the parliament? That has never happened before, not at the scale we are witnessing today. And there are no clear guidelines : presumably, the President will nominate a PM from the party that came out in the lead in these parliamentary election. But if all the other parties reject the new PM, they could oust them. A multi-party coalition could be created to reach the absolute majority, but lately the major political formations have been sternly opposed.
The coming days are going to be very interesting, and a good stress-test for our institutions.
Okay that clears up a lot. So if the President manages military and foreign relations, does the PM manage bureaus? Who creates the budget?
Merci! This is well written. Good luck to you!
The closest thing we have to American bureaus are ministries and “secrétariats d’état”, and yes they are managed by the PM.
The budget is created by the government, under the PM’s management, and ratified by the parliament.
The President is elected by the people, what you call popular vote I believe. The President then nominates the Prime Minister from whatever party holds the majority in the Parliament. In this election, it isn’t the presidential party that got the majority, so Attal (the exiting Prime Minister from the presidential party) resigns.
Macron could also resign I guess, since it was his idea to dissolve the Parliament in the first place, but it’s pretty uncommon.
Note that this is for the French system. Starmer is British and has to deal with whatever dumbster fire of a system they have on his side of the Channel
Thank you for the reply. Can you explain the bit about ‘dissolve the Parliament’? What does that entail?
President is elected, assembly is elected, president picks a prime minister among the majority party in the assembly (hopefully the same as his own, since the assembly gets to confirm the pick), prime minister picks a government (picks the ministers in their own party) with the president’s blessings. In case the majority party is opposite the president, the president doesn’t get much of a choice, as we know the majority party will only accept ministers on their side.
When the assembly is reelected, the prime minister typically offers their resignation regardless of the results (we are here), and the president can accept it or refuse it (we expect Macron to refuse, or at least delay it until the end of the Olympics, which makes the most sense, but Attal will almost certainly be gone after the Olympics). Then a new government is formed. A prime minister usually gets a couple governments under their belt until the president gets a new prime minister. Attal got shafted by the early dissolution since he was only here for a few months.
Macron is the president and head of state. He’s elected directly by the citizens of France.
Attal is (was) the prime minister and head of government.
He’s elected by the members of parliament.He’s appointed by the president but needs majority support in parliament.“To form a government” usually means that someone is tasked by the head of state (president or king) to come up with a group of people (cabinet) that has majority support in the house(s) of parliament. That’s easy for Starmer when Labour has a majority. In other countries like the Netherlands, Germany, or Italy, that usually requires a coalition.
That will now also be the case in France.
Hello, did not understand everything so sorry in advance if i say anything dumb In France, we have a President, elected by every adult citizen. In theory, he does not lead the country, and chooses a Prime Minister for this task, who then comes up with a government. In practice though, the President (Macron for now) has a lot more power over the PM because he can revoke and name another Prime Minister. And as the Assembly also have the power to revoke PM, President generally chooses someone that the majority in the Assembly will accept, to avoid instability. So currently, Macron is the President and holds practical power over politics, Prime Minister is currently Attal, and is kinda the second in hand of Macron, and as the Assembly seems to change right now, Macron will probably choose someone else as PM, probably someone from the left.