lThe dissolution of the 9th of June gave rise to a lack of understanding that extended to the majority then called “presidential”. Its motives have seemed obscure, except perhaps to its own author. This decision disturbed public opinion all the more because it came from an organ, the President of the Republic, whose political responsibility cannot be assumed. What we saw, on this occasion, is that a constitutionally irresponsible actor seems to lose the ability to justify his actions, not to say that he even loses concern.
Long tolerated because of his election by direct universal suffrage, the President’s political irresponsibility, which is not really limited by the impeachment mechanism of Article 68 of the Constitution, now poses a serious problem, further exacerbated by the ambivalence of the positions adopted by the Head of State.
From his letter to the French in July to his interventions intended to justify the “consultations” for the election of a new prime minister, the president insisted on his role as “protector of the best interests of the nation and guarantor of its institutions”. Let us leave aside the fact, so often recalled, that the phase of crisis that our institutions have gone through is due to his own decision to dissolve the National Assembly. In any case, this role of guarantor of the institutions and of national continuity would imply, for him, occupying the place of a neutral power, like the constitutional monarchs of yesteryear or the presidents of our previous republics.
However, the President has continued to act as a true head of the executive, supporting some political decisions, for example the sale of the Rafale to Serbia, or rejecting others, for example the exclusion of the name of Lucie Castets for reasons that would be immediately censured by the Assembly. This ambivalence poses an institutional problem. We can hardly be both a neutral power and a committed actor.
Suspicious decisions
Moreover, the result of the legislative elections in June-July had the effect of communicating this irresponsible character to the Attal government, which, after its resignation, remained in office to manage so-called “current affairs”. This expression designates the limitation of the powers of a resigning government. It is the administrative judge who sets the scope, through a coherent but inevitably casuist jurisprudence. Therefore, to say that a government deals with current affairs does not delimit a clear area of competence.
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