It took France nine long weeks to form a government after parliamentary elections delivered a deeply divided National Assembly with no faction able to govern alone. The new prime minister has called for compromise – but that won't be easy in a country where meeting in the middle is often synonymous with giving in.
Freshly picked conservative Prime Minister Michel Barnier finally presented his government on Saturday.
Dominated by centrists and fellow right-wingers, former EU commissioner Barnier is nonetheless aware of the challenges in getting a deeply fractured National Assembly to agree on thorny issues like a budget, immigration, tax hikes and possible adjustments to President Emmanuel Macron's controversial pension reform.
“We're going to make compromises. I know the culture of compromise quite well. That's how I managed to unite the 27 countries of the European Union during the Brexit negotiations,” Barnier said in a television interview on Sunday.
“We have to seize this culture of compromise, it’s not about giving in,” he said. Rather, he insisted it was a question of uniting people who “don't come from the same place, who are not necessarily heading to the same place, but who, over a period of time, compromise to help the country progress and to serve the people”.
Analysing Barnier's comments, French journalist Renaud Dély remarked wryly: “Compromise is not a word we often hear in French political life.”
It isn’t. Nor does France have the tradition of coalition building more commonly found in Germany, Switzerland and Nordic countries.
“The idea of deliberation – organised, reasoned debate in the form of an exchange of arguments – has never had the force and legitimacy in France that it has in other countries,” social scientist Loïc Blondiaux told Le Monde.
“A specific trait of our political culture is, on the contrary, contempt for consensus. Compromise is often seen as synonymous with giving in and weakness.”
Barnier promises to tackle France's most pressing problems swiftly
Conflict rather than consensus
"It's difficult to say that France lacks a culture of compromise in absolute terms," according to Laure Gillot-Assayag, a researcher in political science and philosophy, who nonetheless acknowledges that the French political landscape has often been shaped over the centuries by conflict rather than consensus.
"The French Revolution, but also more recent events like the Gilets Jaunes [Yellow Vest] protests, social movements and strikes in general, mean France is often seen as a country where social and political tensions are resolved through direct action rather than negotiation."
The framework of the Fifth Republic – designed in 1958 by its first president Charles de Gaulle to strengthen the executive – is not conducive to compromise either.
"De Gaulle wanted to put an end to the regime of parties of the Fourth Republic because he saw that as a factor of instability due to constant shifting alliances," says Gillot-Assayag.
"So it was aimed at making the National Assembly an extension of the president's will."
Listen to a conversation on political compromise on the Spotlight on France podcast:
Imagined instability
Supporters of de Gaulle, past and present, have justified the concentration of presidential powers as a way of avoiding the instability of both the Third Republic (1870-1940) and Fourth Republic (1940-1958), each of which had a series of coalition governments. Some survived less than two months.
And yet politicians of the time defended a tradition of parliamentary compromise.
“We've given a very caricatural vision of these regimes because de Gaulle wanted to concentrate power,” says Marie-Anne Cohendet, a professor of constitutional law.
“But some wonderful things happened under the Third and Fourth Republics. And beyond ministerial reshuffles, there was great stability in terms of political staff.”
What's more, presidents “presided” and prime ministers “governed” in a way that closer resembles the system of governance in several EU states today.
France celebrates Fifth Republic in stormy European waters
Top-down government?
The 7 July parliamentary election delivered three main political forces, with the broad left-wing NFP alliance coming out on top, followed by Macron's centrist Ensemble coalition and the far-right National Rally (RN) in a close third place. None won a sufficient majority to govern alone.
"There are 11 political groups in the National Assembly, it's a record," Gillot-Assayag points out, deeming that "a culture of compromise is more necessary than ever" if the government is to function in such a deeply divided political landscape.
She takes inspiration from the late French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, who conceptualised compromise as a founding principle of democracy.
"Ricoeur offers a strong and original take on compromise," she explains, in which a difficult balance has to be maintained between what the theorist calls the vertical axis of authority and a horizontal axis of living together.
"When one of the axes takes over the other, we fall into violence and authoritarianism. In simple terms it means that democracy cannot only be about participation, but neither can it be summed up by a vertical decision-making process – authority needs to be recognised, authored by citizens."
It turns out Macron was one of Ricoeur’s former pupils and has often cited the philosopher’s influence on his "en même temps" ("at the same time") approach to politics.
But by dissolving parliament and calling snap elections without consulting his prime minister or cabinet members, and then flatly refusing to appoint a premier from the left-wing alliance that won those elections – preferring to name a conservative whose party won just 7 percent – Macron appears to have skipped one of his mentor's lessons.
"President Macron is not seen as a president who easily compromised," says Gillot-Assayag. "He's been accused of authoritarianism" – notably from the left, who saw his appointment of Barnier as "a denial of democracy but also a denial of compromise".
Battle of wills
Macron is not alone in wanting to impose his will.
"What we're seeing, rather than a lack of culture of compromise, is the real obstacles to make it work," Gillot-Assayag notes. "It's a problem of individuals."
Opposition parties such as the hard-left France Unbowed, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and the far-right National Rally, led by Jordan Bardella, are fundamentally opposed to the government's agenda, she analyses. "It reflects a broader tendency towards radical dissent, rather than compromise."
Mélenchon's France Unbowed – the main component in the left-wing NFP alliance – insisted Macron accept its pick for premier and apply the left-wing manifesto in its entirety.
Bardella, meanwhile, ruled out any form of compromise from the get-go, saying ahead of the elections he would only take up the role of prime minister if RN won an absolute majority.
One of the problems is that French politics now revolves around individual leaders rather than parties.
Macron created his centrist Republic on the Move movement (later renamed Renaissance) in 2016, the same year as Mélenchon founded France Unbowed. Marine Le Pen put her mark on her father's National Front party in 2018, rebranding it the National Rally.
"We see today that political leaders are polluting the capacity for compromise that existed in the Third and Fourth Republics," says historian Jean Garrigues. "They all have their eyes fixed on [presidential elections] in 2027."
Appetite for compromise
Yet while figures like Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles de Gaulle may have "familiarised the French with the idea of authoritarian leaders", Garrigues told French public radio, "French society is evolving".
"[People] are rediscovering a taste for deliberation, even the direct democracy of the beginning of the Third Republic."
Meanwhile, Gillot-Assayag sees ways of integrating Ricoeur’s idea of compromise into policy-making, notably by inviting the public to have a say via citizens’ conventions.
She also advocates training elected officials in the art of compromise. "Parliamentarians are also citizens after all," she says, "so we need to make sure they understand their duties and rights as democratic actors in the political system."
Despite the two-month political deadlock and ongoing mudslinging, "many political parties and the general public in France are beginning to realise that compromise is crucial for democracy", she believes.
"It's still quite new, but it's a significant development."
