Party, Personality and Institutional Constraint: The French Presidential Election of 2007

Abstract

The designer of the French presidency intended it as a supra-partisan office. Yet this ambition was thwarted by the institutional requirement for a majority in the National Assembly, in order to pass legislation. Today, parties control the presidential function, acting as gatekeepers and enablers; their role has not been usurped by media-promoted personalities. But the presidency has its own dynamic effects on party structures, beyond the mere obligation to produce a plausible candidate. A presidential campaign is the high point of party activity, and the 2007 exercise showed a wide range of effects, according to whether parties are viable candidates for government or pure protesters, or whether they fit uneasily between these positions. This article explores some of these dynamic effects.

Notes

 [1] The UNR changed its name to Union pour la Défense de la République in order to fight the élections de la peur of June 1968.

 [2] Le Monde, 8 mars 2007.

 [3] This is basically the fonction tribunicienne which Georges Lavau assigned to the PCF in its heyday.

 [4] 35 for the PRG and 10 for MRC (Le Monde, 12 décembre 2006).

 [5] La Croix, 15 janvier 2007. Balladur said: ‘il a compris quelque chose que je ne savais pas; le contrôle du parti et du groupe est indispensable’ (Le Monde, 8 mai 2007).

 [6] “Sarko”, marque totale’ (Le Monde, 11 mai 2007).

 [7] The party's Le Mans congress of November 2005 had given Hollande 54%, Fabius 21% and Montebourg's left fraction 24% (Noir 2007, pp. 75–76).

 [8] The name given to the special membership drive undertaken by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which in 1924 accepted a huge intake of new, untried members from working class origins. Quantity was preferred to quality; the new members were helpful to Stalin in his conquest of the party (Carr 1969, pp. 358–362).

 [9] Royal took 60.65% of the vote, Strauss-Kahn 20.69% and Fabius 18.66% (Lévy 2007, p. 140).

[10] ‘Le triomphe du bonapartisme’, Libération, le 7 mai 2007.

[11] In 2002 and 2007, Bayrou polled best in the classic lands of the Catholic vote—Brittany, Ouest-Intérieur, Béarn, Alsace, Savoie, south of the Massif Central.

[12] It would be fascinating to know what would happen if there were three ballots (as Guy Carcassonne once mischievously suggested), the more so as Bayrou was given clear favourite to beat Royal or Sarkozy if he had ever managed to get on the final ballot. Poll respondents would probably have known that this was unlikely, of course.

[13] Mme. Voynet is an anaesthetist by trade.

[14] A candidate scoring under 5% can claim up to 5% of the maximum allowable (16 million euros this year); scores above 5% can claim up to half this sum (Jadot 2007).