I got a call from French embassy yesterday. Apparently they will run out of possible PM candidates by the end of the year and will start offering the job to foreigners. My turn will be March 5th from 13:00 to 13:20.
14 hours is “the shortest-lived administration in modern French history”. They said modern, is there another French government that folded faster than 14 hours?
King Louis-Antoine lasted about 20 minutes.
Liz Truss made it 49 days, Sebastien Lecornu only made it 27. What’s a shorter unit of measurement than a head of lettuce?
Spinach
It’s about 4.1 centiMooches.
A (scara)mooch(ie) right? Or are we not using freedom units in here?
Avocado?
Bananas? Raspberries?
Probably as long as this game, assuming that commiting seppeku is an option.
For Americans who don’t have a similar system, a “government collapse” isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. It sounds like there’s a complete breakdown in law and order and nobody’s in charge. Really what happens is that the arrangement that so-and-so will be prime minister and his cabinet will be X, Y and Z is off.
Sometimes it means there are new elections. But, sometimes (as in the French system) it just means that the various representatives all negotiate among themselves to choose a new prime minister. The President then appoints that person. It can vary from the president rubber stamping the decision, to the President getting involved in the negotiations and playing a key role in choosing the next PM. Once the President makes it official, that person becomes PM and then chooses a new cabinet. Before a new PM is chosen there’s a bit of chaos. The government can still vote on things, but the normal process is disrupted because there’s no “first among equals” to lead. In the case of France, normally the President doesn’t (or shouldn’t) deal with the day-to-day running of the government. But, during the previous government’s collapse Macron stepped in to do many things the Prime Minister would normally do.
One minor twist here. In theory, a French President is supposed to handle foreign policy and defence. The Prime Minister is supposed to run domestic things, including the day-to-day government functions. One reason why this government lasted 14 hours (or 27 days if you count his full time as PM) is that Macron was seen as having too heavy a hand in picking not just the PM Lecornu (picking the PM is technically his job as President), but also in picking the PM’s cabinet (which is supposed to be something the PM does himself). As soon as Lecornu announced his cabinet, the rest of the elected reps saw that it was essentially the same as the one they just voted down a month ago. They said they weren’t going to work with Lecornu’s government, so Lecornu quit immediately.
From a Canadian who also doesn’t have a similar system and was confused about why you’d have both a president and a PM, thank you.
Canada does have a sort-of similar system. It’s just that the “president” in Canada is “the crown”, which is the Governor General representing the current British monarch. It’s much more of a ceremonial role in Canada, but technically the Governor General does appoint the Prime Minister.
Australia has essentially the same system as Canada. In 1975 the Australian Governor General dismissed the Prime Minister and picked the leader of the opposition as Prime Minister so that he could call an election. Described like that it seems like a blatant abuse of power. But, the background was a really dysfunctional government. One party had narrow control over the house, the other had narrow control over the senate, and the senate was blocking everything the house tried to do. I don’t know the full details of what happened in that affair, but it seems like it could be a good thing if a Governor General would step in in a crisis resolve a deadlock.
Canada also has the “confidence votes” part of the crisis in France. AFAIK in Canada losing a confidence vote immediately triggers an election, unlike in France where it can just lead to a scramble to see who can become the new PM among the existing representatives. Because triggering an election is a big deal, it doesn’t tend to happen too often. But it has happened. In 2011 Stephen Harper’s government lost a confidence vote, and there was an immediate election, but he won that election. In 2007 Paul Martin’s government also fell to a confidence vote.
Thank you! Yes, it sounded a bit like our gov general but seemed more involved. Appreciate the thorough response :)
In many countries, the president is the head of state, they manage the transition of power and act as diplomats, in place of a king. Finland has both a president and PM.
I think the US chose to have a president act as a sort of a king with a term limit. Other countries saw that and adapted it when they moved away from their monarchies, either giving the president king-like powers or giving them just a ceremonial role as head of state.
What’s funny is that in the UK and in many former British colonies, there’s still a king, but it’s mostly a ceremonial role these days. So, things have basically reversed. A modern king who’s a head of state is basically a figurehead. A president who is the head of a country may have monarch-type powers.
Definitely.
I like searching the library of Congress’s site for the federalist papers when researching about the (surprisingly advanced) political science discussions during the Enlightenment.
Federalist papers 67-70, and 73 make some comparisons between kings and presidents. It’s definitely clear that a king is a common example in the political discourse at the time, which makes sense since their system had a king just 10-15 years before.
Yeah, there seems to be a weird reversal in the powers of a king and president. Federalist#73 says that kings fear challenging parliament, so a president who has to face reelection should be even less powerful, but it really seems like the opposite these days. The US president has so much influence over congress. It also seems like they have more of a mandate to override congress because of how involved they are in campaigning. The modern system of prime Ministers where the executive comes from parliament seems to play out better in modern politics.
Off-topic, but Federalist#66 is suuuper unfortunate to read in the modern day. The idea that senators will feel empowered to impeach officials they previously endorsed, just because individuals in the senate might feel like an official has betrayed their trust? The idea that a majority of congress would never act tyranically? Hamilton, what the fuck? I guess the main issue though is that parties have become much stronger than democratic pressure on individual seats in the senate.
The modern system of prime Ministers where the executive comes from parliament seems to play out better in modern politics.
Yes and no. The problem is that in parliamentary systems like that, if the government has a majority then they’re unstoppable. In a system with a president who has some actual authority, or a king who isn’t merely a figurehead, the Prime Minister can’t just do everything he wants. There still needs to be some negotiation.
On the other hand, the world has a lot of authoritarians in it who wore (and in some cases still are) supported by popular votes. People seem really bad at picking leaders who want to serve out a 4-10 year term, then retire to a cushy life afterwards.
It sounds like there’s a complete breakdown in law and order and nobody’s in charge.
So, France on a Tuesday.
Honestly, they haven’t even tried to break Belgium’s longest-streak-without-government.
Really highlights the massive problems with the French government system and Macron personally.
Oh thats my tenth punch on my french government punch card. Do I get something now?
Yeah, every 10th government you get a free republic
looks around
shit looks like the world is fresh out of free republics… could i interest you instead in a flawed democracy?
The empire will stand strong then. Jedi scum will perish.
More like a free Napoleon. 😀
The candy? Yay!
hmmm, I’m sorry it looks like the country that gave you these went out of business.
Macron keeps shoving these shit birds into the PM seat and Parliament keeps crapping them back out again.
Maybe the government collapse thing is not a big deal, but the way it happens is so pitifull, so ridiculous, that it is the collapsing of our entire system it is to fear. In addition to the 3 same unconventional governments Macron gave us since the dissolution of the parliament he provoked himself (he named allies of him as prime ministers instead of opposition leaders, as it is intended), He just re-named Lecornu again yesterday evening. We’re a joke
The Fifth Republic is inherently flawed. It creates two executives that come about from two different democratic mandates.
You also don’t have a political tradition of separation of powers which allows for some presidential autonomy in selecting political appointments in France. The French President is trying to assert his presidential right in selecting appointees from his party and the French Parliament is asserting tradition that the Prime Minister should be chosen by the largest coalition in Parliament.
Interesting that the EU flag is on the left, indicating superiority
Because the EU as a supranational organisation is superior to its members.
Not really. Article 50 exists, and even then, nobody has been kicked out of the EU either. Most EU countries don’t do this. I know Germany did it, but that’s Germany. The EU is just something a country is a member of, like NATO or the UN.
For example in the UK, the only flag that ever has been able to take priority over the national one is the Royal Standard.
