Gauthier Delomez / Photo credits: EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP
Emmanuel Macron would have castigated the limitation to two consecutive terms for the President of the Republic, describing this rule in force since 2008 as “fatal bullshit”. A reform of the Constitution to allow him to run again from 2027 seems very difficult to pass.
If Emmanuel Macron wanted to run for a third term, can he do so as soon as the next presidential election, in 2027? The president is said to have dropped a polemical sentence on Wednesday evening, during his meeting behind closed doors with the leaders of the opposition parties, declaring that “not being able to be re-elected is a fatal bullshit”. He refers to a reform of the Constitution adopted in 2008 under Nicolas Sarkozy, which limits the number of consecutive presidential terms to two.
The president could, however, initiate a new reform to try to break this limitation, and thus run for a third term. For this, theoretically, Emmanuel Macron must follow article 89 of the said Constitution and propose a text of revision to deputies and senators. If the National Assembly and the Senate agree on the wording of this text, it may be voted on either by referendum, or by a majority of 3/5ths of the votes cast in the two chambers of Parliament, then meeting in Congress.
No absolute majority in Parliament
So much for the theory. But in practice, this scenario seems extremely unlikely. This is because the president does not have an absolute majority in the Assembly, let alone in the Senate. The first stage of project validation is therefore far from being a formality. In addition, this idea of breaking the limit of two consecutive terms could be frowned upon by voters. Such a reform therefore seems unrealistic four years from the next presidential election.
One of the solutions for the head of state could be to try an unprecedented move: resign before the 2027 election to give him the right to run again. A scenario that divides lawyers, but the Élysée had already swept it away in 2020, and the Head of State had himself affirmed, in April 2023 during a trip to Ganges in Hérault, that he would not quit. The question of his succession therefore agitates the camp of the presidential majority more than ever.