The debates on the possible removal of the investigating judge and the
possible creation of a tax on the production of carbon dioxide reveal a
worrying trend on the public spirit: everything takes place as if, for
people, a decision announced by the executive had force of law. We only
discuss whether it is to the president or the prime minister to make these
choices, and we are even surprised that the investigating judge still
exists, or that the carbon tax is not already in application.
And yet, in democracy, and in France in particular, ever since our country
has been in the Republic, it is the parliament which votes taxes and decides
on the reform of our judiciary. The 5th republic confirmed it, by
specifying, in its article 34, the areas where the law is necessary, which
includes taxes and reform of the judiciary. Furthermore, the very recent
Constitutional reform considerably reinforced the power of the parliament,
in part setting its agenda, proposing its own texts and being able to more
easily push aside texts of the Executive.
The temptation for the Executive to encroach on the legislative power is
constant, regardless of the majorities; commentators help it and
parliamentarians, from the majority and the opposition, seem to be caught in
this trap. By reverence for some. negligence for others.
This temptation will increase.
On one hand, because of the recent reform of the presidential mandate, and
the scheduling of the legislative elections after that of the president,
allowing him to say that his election determines that of the members of
Parliament from his own majority and that therefore it is his personal
choices that must prevail.
On the other hand, because of the tremendous reduction of the powers of some
and of others, they are urged to compete more and more in their ultimate
areas of intervention: the President has lost much of his former reserved
area because of the disappearance of the Soviet threat, which empties of its
thaumaturgical meaning the nuclear weapon, the development of Europe, which
deprives him of uncountable diplomatic degrees of freedom, the creation of
the euro, which deprives him of the power to devalue or revalue;
privatizations, which deprive him of uncountable opportunities for
appointments. The government, also, has lost many of its powers, to which
the decentralization is added, which returns to the local authorities many
prerogatives which in the past was in the hands of to the ministers.
Finally, the parliament itself has lost a lot of power because of the
primacy of European law, whose directives translated into legal texts is
imposing tremendous constraints on national representation.
Therefore public opinion should not let the Executive, who did not ask for
so much, assume an undue share of the ultimate national competences. And if
we do not want an involuntary “coup d’état” to take place, it is necessary
to recall unceasingly that, in our big and beautiful democracy, on all the
major subjects, the president proposes, the parliament decides, the
government executes.