Is France experiencing a democratic crisis? While the pension reform is in the hands of the Constitutional Council, which will make its decision on April 14, the day after the twelfth day of mobilization, France seems more than divided. Invited to Europe 1 Matin, the economist and lawyer Nicolas Baverez returns, at the microphone of Sonia Mabrouk, to the period that France is currently experiencing, marked by disputes and violence.
“A degree of defiance rarely achieved”
“The Constitutional Council will also decide on something else, which is the shared initiative referendum. And if it gives the green light, that means that we will live with pensions until the Olympic Games, which does not is not going to be a path paved with roses”, underlines the economist. Especially since there is now a social crisis with all the union forces opposed to the President of the Republic. Moreover, for Nicolas Baverez, France is experiencing a political crisis also called a democratic crisis. “When we look at the attitude of the French, of citizens towards institutions and leaders, there is a degree of mistrust that we have rarely reached. And that’s a democratic crisis. When mistrust s install, this is where freedom or the Republic can be threatened”, warns the lawyer at the microphone of Sonia Mabrouk.
The decision of the Constitutional Council is likely to have an impact and a significant repercussion. But concretely, this will have a double dimension, it will be both legal and political. “All supreme courts deal with both law and politics. So obviously, we will have this double dimension. That is to say that the mission of the Constitutional Council is to judge the law in relation to the Constitution. But the supreme judges always do it according to a state of opinion”, admits Nicolas Baverez.
A tougher reform at the exit?
On the other hand, the French are likely to find themselves with a harder reform at the end of the decision of the Constitutional Council. “As it is a budgetary procedure, it must be clear, the most legitimate measures are those that bring in money. It is true that it brings the text back to its purely financial dimension”, recognizes the economist. For him, by choosing a budget text, there is a risk that the Constitutional Council cancels a certain number of accompanying measures to pass social or financial counterparties.
A stack of crises
In recent weeks, France has been marked by the revolt of citizens and an increase in violence in processions. But concretely, has the country ever experienced such a crisis? For Nicolas Baverez, historian, “France has not experienced such a pile of crises since the Algerian war”. “We have an energy crisis, a food crisis, a monetary crisis, the beginning of a banking crisis then a major strategic crisis with Russia which has become an existential threat”, he laments. He specifies that the French leaders are dealing with a range of crises rarely known. “It must be recognized that Emmanuel Macron, since he was elected President of the Republic, has always had a difficult and ineffective relationship with the sovereign functions. And, moreover, each time there is a crisis , like the first with the Benalla affair, there is a real difficulty in managing it”, affirms Nicolas Baverez in Europe 1 Morning.
However, if Emmanuel Macron decides to give in and listen to a significant part of the French, Europe and the rest of the world could think that the quinquennium of the president is over. “What is needed is to find a way out from above. The president must absolutely change the mindset of his way of presiding and in particular this centralization, this verticality which does not work and which does not never worked,” he concludes.