If a majority hostile to President Emanuel Macron is formed in the June parliamentary elections, France’s foreign policy risks losing credibility, weakening the country and Europe’s influence on the international stage, analysts warn.
Looking back at the story and the complicated coexistence between Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin, analysts cited the ongoing war in Ukraine and the stance on Moscow as examples of what could be at stake.
While Macron was re-elected against Marin Le Pen on Sunday (April 24th), he is not secured a stable majority in the National Assembly after the upcoming parliamentary elections in June.
While a majority radically opposed to Macron on the diplomatic front – led by Jean-Luc Melanson or Marin Le Pen for example – is unlikely at this stage, coexistence with other political forces could lead to “two foreign policies” in France, according to Professor Thanassis Diamantopoulos, who specializes in the French political system and politics.
As the French Constitution does not give a clear answer on the division of responsibilities in this area, a situation arises that results in forging the country’s foreign policy and, therefore, mediation between the president and the government is required when they do not come from the same policy. family.
The complicated Chirac-Jospin symbiosis
An example from recent French history has been the unsustainable coexistence between conservative President Jacques Chirac and Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
The two politicians often clashed over France’s stance on the Middle East, with Chirac supporting the Arab world and Jospin supporting Israel.
An incident in February 2000 highlighted the difficulties in foreign affairs when the prime minister is not a “president’s man”.
During a visit to Palestine, Jospin described Hezbollah’s attacks on Israeli troops as “terrorist acts” that angered the Arab world.
When he returned to France, he received a call from Chirac telling him that it was the president who was setting the tone for French foreign policy.
“Compromising” foreign policy
Sami Cohen, a political scientist and expert on defense and foreign affairs, identified in his book “La politique étrangère entre l’Elysée et Matignon” “three spheres of influence” on diplomacy: one sphere is presidential, the other is government and an intermediate sphere of “co-management”, where the president can not act without the agreement of the government and vice versa.
The third category is the one that can cause the most problems between the Presidency and the government. It includes in particular “military operations, important decisions on Community issues,” Cohen wrote.
But even if “in the system of the Fifth Republic the president has a say in foreign policy”, Thanasis Diamantopoulos acknowledges that in case of coexistence, “the coherence of French foreign policy would be jeopardized […] and its credibility in the eyes of Europeans. “
“In a period of cohabitation, it is still the President of the Republic who sets the main diplomatic guidelines and represents France abroad,” agrees Benjamin Haddad, director of the Washington-based think-tank Atlantic Council.
However, he explained to France EURACTIV that “the existence of a form of paralysis or institutional weakness at home hinders France’s influence abroad”.
“Often, French internal conflicts are seen abroad and weaken our voice,” Haddad added.
The impact on the attitude towards Moscow
What makes the prospect of coexistence particularly problematic is that “in the case of the two main forces of Macron’s opposition, namely the National Rassemblement or La France Insoumise, we have fundamental differences in relation to the European Union, Russia, the alliances,” he said. Haddad.
According to him, France could be “in a state of total paralysis” with a government led by Jean-Luc Melanson or Marine Le Pen and oppose Macron’s decision to hand over weapons to Ukraine or impose some sanctions against it. Russia.
What could be the consequences for France? It would be “completely weakened on the international stage”, according to Haddad’s analysis, especially “in terms of credibility with our partners”, in addition to the internal institutional crisis that this would cause.
Europe will also suffer the consequences. Possibly, “if we were in a period of cohabitation, we would have an anti-European movement with a policy of excluding Europe in government […] “The whole EU bloc would weaken and suffer,” Haddad warned.
Thus, if due to a cohabitation, France “withdrew from arms deliveries [στην Ουκρανία] “or from European sanctions, the whole European edifice would collapse.”
euractiv.gr
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