Move Over, Jupiter: France's Parliament Takes Centre Stage

Paris, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jun, 2022 ) :By design, France is usually governed by a president vested with extraordinary powers. But after Sunday's election, Emmanuel Macron finds himself at the mercy of a newly influential parliament.

It isn't meant to be this way: the 1958 constitution designed by the father of the modern nation, Charles de Gaulle, reduced the power of MPs, with subsequent changes amplifying this shift.

"The fifth republic was made for decisiveness," Frederic Fogacci, a historian and lecturer at Sciences Po university in Paris, recalling the origins of the current republic in the tumultuous post-war years.

For five years, Macron ruled as intended -- a leader with a strong majority that enabled him to push through changes, with only street demonstrations and the upper house Senate serving as resistance.

He once theorised that the French had a repressed longing for a king-like figure and he even namechecked the Roman god of gods, Jupiter, as inspiration -- earning him his nickname.

"Jupiter is over," political scientist Pascal Perrineau told the Parisien newspaper on Monday as the country digested the weekend's stunning results.

Only two months after being re-elected for a second term, Macron's allies are 45 seats short of a majority.

Other presidents have had to contend with an opposition-dominated parliament, most recently right-winger Jacques Chirac, who served alongside a Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin from 1997-2002.

Socialist President Francois Mitterrand also struggled through with a minority government from 1988-1991.

Even de Gaulle had slim majorities as president in the 1960s.

"He always had prime ministers who had to negotiate," Fogacci added.

But these rare periods when the president had his hands tied were meant to have been consigned to history by another constitutional change.

From 2002, the parliamentary elections were moved to just after the presidential ones, with the idea being that voters would hand the newly elected head of state a working majority afterwards.

In the 20 years since, the logic worked for Chirac, rightwinger Nicolas Sarkozy -- who was nicknamed the "hyper president" -- Socialist Francois Hollande and Macron in 2017.