SSpeech has become extremely rare, but at almost 94 years old – he will be on May 2 – Édouard Balladur keeps a sharp mind, tinged with pungent irony. He proved it by delivering his thoughts on the Ve Republic Monday, January 23 before the sages of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, under the chairmanship of Jean-Claude Trichet. Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic under Georges Pompidou – from 1973 to 1974 –, Minister of State during the first cohabitation Mitterrand-Chirac, between 1986 and 1988, then Prime Minister under the second, from 1993 to 1995, and finally chairman of the committee that led to the constitutional revision of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008, Édouard Balladur was involved in the evolution of institutional practice. Not without malice, he underlined during his presentation that the number of constitutional reforms was equal to three during the IIIe Republic, only one during the IVe and… at twenty-one during the Ve, “champion of all categories of constitutional innovations, which, however, have not solved the problems”. “A kind of game, a lottery, has been set up: why don’t we want to change the Constitution according to the fashion of the moment? “In particular launched the former Prime Minister.
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In the catalog of this “innovative fever”, Édouard Balladur pointed to several reforms that he had to know as closely as possible. He recalls that the five-year term was originally an idea of Georges Pompidou, whose collaborator he was at the Élysée, without the latter wishing to apply it to himself – “in any case, his state of health would not have allowed it”, he underlines under the attentive glance of the biographer of the president, Éric Roussel. For President Pompidou, affirms Édouard Balladur, by establishing the five-year term, “there was no question of establishing continuity between the election of the President of the Republic and that of the National Assembly”. This was the objective of the reform implemented in 2002, but, in 2022, “it has been shown that simultaneity was a decoy”, notes the former secretary general of the Élysée, in favor of a return to the seven-year term. .
A constitutional revision is always possible before term… But our country would follow in the footsteps of Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Chad and Cameroon.
Regarding the presidential term, Édouard Balladur disputes the limitation of it to two successive terms, a rule enshrined in the Constitution in 2008. “This innovation does not seem to me to be happy”, he said, stressing that it can be the object of “many diversions”. Without giving in to speculation about the fate of the current host of the Élysée, with the sibylline but caustic style that he likes, the unsuccessful former presidential candidate of 1995 warned: “A constitutional revision is always possible before term… But our country would follow in the footsteps of Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Chad and Cameroon. And the speaker, triggering laughter, made an allusion to the Russian institutional sleight of hand, which led Putin to give up his chair to Medvedev to better recover it later: “Each of us will appreciate if it is a flattering reference. »
The Gaullist rallied to the “mixed” regime created by the Ve. “I was for a time in favor of a presidential system, I was wrong, he concedes. The diet of the Ve as the General wanted it is a good system. “Especially since he resisted the governments of cohabitation, which “were not the worst”, notes the right-wing leader who served twice under the socialist François Mitterrand.
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However, the man who chaired the 2008 constitutional reform committee is worried about a certain contemporary deviation of parliamentarism, leading to the congestion of public sessions in parliamentary chambers by discussions of amendments, normally reserved for preparatory committees. “Parliament today, deplores Édouard Balladur, is limited to amending or sub-amending government projects, although the latter has a relative majority in the Assembly and a hostile Senate. »
His Majesty the Constitutional Judge
But what especially preoccupies the statesman is the legalization of political life. Édouard Balladur thus points to the inflation of priority questions of constitutionality, an innovation put in place in the 2008 reform which allows the Constitutional Council to control enacted laws a posteriori. This has “put in majesty the constitutional judge, and everyone sees in it the mark of a decline in representative democracy”. The number of cases handled by the Council chaired by Laurent Fabius has tripled, and the latter, notes the former head of government Balladur, “has become a real jurisdiction with public sessions and pleadings”. As a result, “whole sections of positive law are called into question”, “which gives the Constitutional Council a central role”. “Is representative democracy being supplanted by a democracy of law? “questions Édouard Balladur, leaving the question in abeyance but expressing the wish that the Council of State, of which he is a member, “exert increased vigilance on the constitutionality of the texts”.
Choosing only second-rate people to be sure of dominating them is the mark of an inferiority complex.
Speaking as part of a cycle of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences on “good governance”, Édouard Balladur gave some advice on the subject. To fight against “the fear of great downgrading” which haunts many French people, from the bottom to the top of society, he urges those in power to define an “ambitious” project and to show themselves determined “to apply it by excluding any demagoguery, the real cancer of democracy”. In order to serve this objective, it is necessary to “compose a good government”.
“Choosing only second-rate people to be sure of dominating them is the mark of an inferiority complex”, considers the former Prime Minister. An angel passes through the Quai Conti room… The ex continues: “When there are a multitude of ministers, they only have authority over a sub-commission, or even the office of a ministry”. To govern well, he will say further on, “one must speak to France and not to its supporters”, “be less concerned about one’s rights than devote oneself to one’s duties”.
The power of the street
And Édouard Balladur to launch into a plea for the power of the State: “It is the permanence of strong administrations which has enabled France to survive”. Faith of Balladur, “there is no rebellious administration facing a government that knows what it wants”. The former enarque was indignant at the abolition of schools and state bodies, rising up against the widespread ideas: “The administration is not folded in on itself and its members have ethnic origins. various. »
Asked about the power of the street, the former negotiator of the Grenelle agreements in 68 admits a “democratic right to protest”, but worries about a “tense moral and psychological state of our country, which makes things difficult”.
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The former minister of privatizations will plead during this session for an “ordered and shared” liberalism, which would free the living forces “paralyzed in a bogged down country”. In power, he says, he wanted to develop profit sharing, shareholding, employee shareholding, but at the time he came up against the unions, “who saw in this shared liberalism the end of the class struggle “. The balance of power has not really changed.