The issue of one party domination has suddenly arisen again in France after the foundation
of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in 2002. This new right-wing party, created by
merging the former RPR with part of the UDF
, had gained control on most of the different
institutions of the Fifth Republic. President Chirac, around who was created the UMP, was
elected in 2002 with more than 80% of the votes (in the second round of the presidential
election). The following legislative elections gave a majority to the UMP in the National
Assembly (the UMP garners 365 out of 577 seats)
. A majority of members of the
Constitutional Council were nominated by UMP members
and a majority of local
governments (regions, departments and cities) were controlled
by UMP representatives.
Moreover, for the very first time under the Fifth Republic, a single party has had a majority in
the Senate
.
Such a parliamentary and executive dominance of a single party was never achieved before.
The congruence of the majorities among the executive (presidential majority), the National
Assembly and the Senate is thus an exceptional feature (see table 1 below). Of course, French
bicameralism is not symmetrical. This means that the congruence between the National
Assembly and the Senate could be considered as not so remarkable because it has no huge
impact on policy making (and even no impact on government stability). It is however a
significant characteristic in defining dominance because Senate has veto powers in some
legislative areas and some significant amendment powers (Tsebelis & Money, 1997), and
because the President of the Senate has a right to nominate one third of the Constitutional
Council. The lack of congruence between the National Assembly and the Senate did in fact
cause political troubles especially for President de Gaulle and Mitterrand.
The domination of the UMP over the French party system can however be questioned. Its
parliamentary and executive dominance is in fact not based on electoral domination
first round of the presidential election, President Chirac only scored about 20% of the votes.
The UMP furthermore suffered a severe defeat in the local and European elections of 2004.
The most symbolic aspect of this defeat was the swing of about half of the French regions to
2
In fact, the merger was even larger. It encompassed also the Liberal Democracy (which came out of the UDF in
1998) and part of the RPF (Pasqua's Eurosceptic party). See Haegel, 2002 and Sauger, 2003b.
3
The government is furthermore quasi mono-partisan since only one member of the UDF (G. de Robien)
participates in.
4
The members of the Constitutional Council are nominated by the President of the Republic (Chirac since 1995),
the President of the Senate (Christian Poncelet, UMP member, since 1998) and the President of the National
Assembly.
5
The UMP lost this majority of local government in the 2004 local and European elections, which gave control
to the socialists of almost all the regions.
6
This majority was the result of the merger of two groups (RPR and Independent Republicans, which gathered
members of either UDF or Liberal Democracy). However, the UMP majority has been now transformed in
plurality since the results of the 2004 senatorial elections.
7
The UMP is besides deeply divided by the rivalry of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, currently president
of the UMP.
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Convention