Partially Presidentialized Bicameral Parliament of France and Its Impact on the Course of Legislative Proceedings During Emmanuel Macron’s Term of Office in the Light of the Fifth Republic’s Institutional Logic

Abstract

The article refers to the impact of the proximity of the presidential and parliamentary elections on the political composition of the chambers of the French parliament, as well as on their functioning in the framework of rationalized parliamentarianism. The 2017 elections were, due to the victory of Emmanuel Macron as a candidate from outside the two main political camps, a special test for the so-called majoritarian fact, which may be defied as an opposite of cohabitation. The author points to the maintenance, even after the 2017 elections, of the Fifth Republic’s institutional logic based on presidential dominance. Its part is also the fact that the Senate – the French second chamber – does not have to be included into the majoritarian fact. this may result in the occurrence, despite the aforementioned strong position of the president’s camp, of incongruent bicameralism. Such a configuration may be treated as an indicator of a partial presidentialization of France’s bicameral parliament. Hence, the author argues that both partial senatorial elections of 2017 and 2020 strengthened a weaker version of majoritarian fact applied within the French semi-presidential system of government. All this has an impact on the use of selected parliamentary procedures concerning the course of legislative proceedings (such as mixed parity commissions and the last word given to the National Assembly), which have been inscribed into the framework of the Fifth Republic’s rationalized parliamentarism.