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MEGA INITIATIVE — MAKE EUROPE GREAT AGAIN / MAKE EARTH GREAT AGAIN — IS AN INDEPENDENT INITIATIVE DEDICATED TO EUROPEAN DEMOCRATIC SOVEREIGNTY, THE DEFENCE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, AND THE ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY GEOPOLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS.

CLARIFICATION

This initiative is independent and non-partisan.
It has no connection with political movements that have used the acronym “MEGA” in nationalist or populist contexts.
On the contrary, the project is grounded in a European, democratic perspective committed to the respect of international law.

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"I dream that one day, in the face of the return of retreat,
of brute force and privatized truths,
Europe, Germany, France and the United Kingdom
will rise together to say :democracy is not a weakness,
truth is not negotiable,
and the rule of law deserves to be defended."

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MEGA Initiative — Founding Declaration · Version 1.0 · January 2026

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Preamble to the MEGA Declaration

I dream that one day, in a world worn down by fear and confusion,
three leaders rise together,
and speak not to flatter, not to promise the impossible,
but to take responsibility.

I dream that one day, at the rostrum of the United Nations,
we stop confusing prudence with immobility, neutrality with abdication, peace with powerlessness.

I dream of a speech that clearly states that freedom is not the absence of rules,
that democracy does not survive without truth,
and that law, without capacity, becomes a prayer without effect.

I dream that one day, Europe stops defining itself by what it fears,
and begins once again to define itself by what it dares to protect.I dream of a speech that looks at the world as it is,
without naïveté, without cynicism, and that affirms that force can be contained,
provided it is framed, assumed, and subject to the rule of law.

I dream of a speech that states that innovation is not the privatization of the world,
that technology is not sovereignty,
and that democracy is not rented by subscription.I dream of a speech that reminds us that without shared facts,
there is no longer any majority — only tribes,
that without method, truth dissolves into narratives,
and that without truth, no free society endures for long.

I dream of a speech that finally accepts to pay the price of credibility:
to renounce ambiguities, paralyzing privileges,
and the comforts inherited from a world that no longer exists.I dream of a speech that states that
protecting peace sometimes requires sanctuarizing,
that deciding is not oppressing,
and that history does not forgive powerlessness.I dream that one day, this speech will be delivered.In the meantime, it is written.

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MEGA DECLARATION — UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Joint Alternating Address – France / Germany / United Kingdom

I — Foundations: responsibility, law, legitimacy

[FR] — Opening: the debt to the future

Mr President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Before speaking of power, institutions, or security, I want to speak of something older than our treaties : responsibility.Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote:
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”This is not a formula. It is a mandate.Saint-Exupéry died on a wartime mission, off the coast of Marseille, in the cockpit of an American P-38.
This detail is not trivial: it speaks to a profound truth. Our history is made of solidarities, shared sacrifices, and loyalties.We are not here to deny this history. We are here to prevent it from becoming powerless nostalgia.If we speak today in the first person, it is not to personalize this moment.
It is to assume responsibility.
Because a founding act cannot be delegated.

[DE] — Law is not a luxury: it is peace

This forum exists for a simple idea: that law must contain force.
My country knows the cost of the collapse of rules, when law becomes decorative and power believes itself legitimate on its own.
We know that a society can appear stable, while being dangerously vulnerable.
I therefore say this with gravity:
International law is not a moral add-on.
It is the practical condition of peace.

[UK] — Powerlessness destroys legitimacy

Crises are not new.
What is new is the speed at which they turn into chaos when institutions become unable to act.
When an organization can no longer decide, it is not only bypassed: it is unlearned.
And when the world unlearns the rule, it relearns force.

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II — The world as it is: threats and dependencies

[FR] — Hybrid threats: sovereignty has become systemic

Threats are no longer only military.They are economic, technological, informational.
They move through payments, cables, satellites, logistical flows, narratives.A state can now be defeated without capitulating:
if its infrastructures are paralyzed,
if its flows are cut,
if its society is fractured.Sovereignty is no longer sectoral. It is systemic.

[DE] — German lucidity: industry alone no longer protects

We long believed that industrial power was sufficient to guarantee stability.We have learned — sometimes too late — that an industry without sovereignty becomes dependence,
and that dependence can become a lever of external domination.That is why we state this clearly:
industry must serve a political project, or it ceases to protect.

[UK] — Our DNA is the sea and trade, not withdrawal

Let us be clear: what we are proposing is not withdrawal.The United Kingdom is a maritime and trading power.
Our security depends on sea lanes, ports, straits, cables, and the fluidity of trade.We have no vocation to close the world.
We have a vocation to prevent it from being closed through coercion.

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III — MEGA: a political architecture for stability

[FR] — MEGA: the founding act

Today, we announce a political act: MEGA.MEGA is not a slogan.
MEGA is an architecture.Make Europe Great Again.
Make Earth Great Again.A capable Europe for a stable world.

[DE] — Make Earth Great Again: without enforcement, there is no rule

Make Earth Great Again means refusing a return to a world in which aggression becomes profitable.And I say this with the simplicity of law:
without enforcement, there is no legal rule.
There is only an empty text.Rules exist only if they carry a price.
This is not vengeance.
It is the condition of stability.

UK] — UN: the veto cannot be a license for war

The right of veto was designed as a mechanism of balance. It too often becomes a mechanism of paralysis.And I say this as the head of government of a country that holds this right:
no institutional privilege is sacred if it prevents the protection of peoples.We therefore propose a clear rule:
the veto cannot block international action when it concerns:

When the Council is paralyzed, legitimacy must return to the General Assembly.
And I add this: what we expect from the United Nations, we impose upon ourselves.

[DE] — EU: democracy is not immobility

This coherence binds us.Permanent unanimity, on vital matters, is not a superior form of democracy.
It can become a right of blockage that endangers the majority.
Deciding is not oppressing.
Deciding is assuming responsibility.

[FR] — A Europe that sanctuarizes does not escalate: it prevents

Make Europe Great Again does not mean escalation.
It means prevention.Peace is not maintained by incantation.
It is maintained because aggression is deterred.And yes: sanctuarizing our territory is a condition of freedom.

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IV —Democracy, Truth, Freedom: The Foundation

[FR] — MEGA Is Also Social: Returning to Original Liberalism

MEGA is not only a strategic architecture.
It is a political project — and therefore a social one.Liberalism was born as a doctrine of freedom and dignity.
Tocqueville understood this: a democracy does not endure solely through its laws,
but through the vitality of its social bond,
through trust among citizens,
through the ability of the greatest number to project themselves into the future.
Its drift into ultra-liberalism has concentrated wealth, weakened the middle classes, and fed fear.
Yet a democracy gripped by anxiety becomes vulnerable.
And a vulnerable democracy becomes manipulable.
MEGA corrects this drift:
the sovereignty we are building must generate growth,
and that growth must be shared,
otherwise there can be neither stability nor lasting freedom.

[DE] — German Industry in the Service of the Common Good: Without Appropriation

I want to be explicit.
German industrial power will be placed at the service of MEGA without ambiguity, and without any intent of national appropriation.
We are putting concrete mechanisms on the table:

Our industry becomes an instrument of European sovereignty — because without sovereignty, industry reverts to dependence.

[UK] — United Kingdom Assets in the Service of MEGA: Sea, Flows, Space, Continuity

European security is not determined solely on land.
It is shaped along maritime routes, ports, straits, undersea cables, logistics.It is also shaped in space: satellites, communications, navigation, observation, early warning.And we already have a major asset:
European space — the ESA and our shared capabilities — in the service of our sovereignty.
Within this framework, the United Kingdom enters MEGA as a pillar.We place at the service of this project:

Because a continent can be paralysed without invasion if it is cut off from the world,
and because a stable world is not a closed one:
it is a world in which trade is possible without extortion.

[FR] — Against the Return of Nation-States as Trading Posts

I want to add an essential warning.
We do not want to see the return of nation-states as trading posts.
A trading-post state is not merely a private territory.
It is a world in which sovereignty is fragmented into enclaves, in which citizenship becomes a subscription,
and in which the law dissolves into terms of service.And yet, we already see this temptation at work.
When private actors claim to organise security, digital identity, currency,
the public space of expression, even entire territories,
outside of any democratic control.When access to the public space depends on a platform,
when a rule can be modified unilaterally,
when an account can be suspended without effective recourse,
then it is no longer merely a service:
it is a sovereign function that has been privatised.This future is not progress.
It is a regression disguised as modernity.
A return to a logic of extraction,
in which a few emancipate themselves from the common rule
while the greatest number remains exposed.MEGA is also a response to this:
we affirm that innovation must serve democracy —never replace it.
And that popular sovereignty will not be replaced
by the sovereignty of capital.

[DE] — Pluralism of Ideas, Unity of Principles

I want to avoid a misunderstanding.
MEGA is not a project of single-minded thinking. A democracy does not require unanimity of opinions.
It requires agreement on a few foundations:

Within this framework, pluralism is not a problem: it is a strength.

[UK] — Freedom Exists Within a Framework: Magna Carta, Enlightenment, Responsibility

Our European heritage carries a constant: freedom is limited power.In the United Kingdom, this idea has a founding symbol: the Magna Carta.
It reminds us that no authority stands above the law,
and that power must be held to account.This requirement then runs through the whole of European thought. With the Enlightenment, it becomes a complete architecture:
public reason, debate, the common law.And Montesquieu would formulate it with uncompromising clarity:
the separation of powers,
to prevent capture, arbitrariness, the domination of one alone.From this architecture flows a responsibility:
the responsibility to exercise one’s freedom without destroying that of others, the responsibility of speech in the public space, and the responsibility of power to punish only what is proven,
according to rules that are known, supervised, and independent.For freedom is not impunity. Nor is it arbitrariness.
Freedom is an architecture: it protects citizens as much as it limits the State.

[FR] — Freedom of Expression: Framework, Dignity, Law

Freedom of expression is a condition of democracy.But freedom is not the right to deny the dignity of others.
Incitement to hatred is not an opinion.
Intimidation is not a debate.
The justification of violence through racial, gender-based or origin-based discrimination is not an opinion: it is an offence — sometimes a crime.Democracy protects criticism, satire and opposition.
It does not protect dehumanisation.

[DE] — Antisemitism Is Not an Opinion

As Germans, we say this without equivocation:
antisemitism is not an opinion.
It is hatred.
And hatred is not a debate: it is a weapon.A democracy does not survive if it allows to flourish what seeks to destroy it.

[UK] — Habeas Corpus: Freedom Is Not Chaos

And we add this: our idea of freedom is not a slogan.It comes from a guarantee: habeas corpus.
The principle that a State must justify its actions, answer before a judge, and be limited by the rule.This is what freedom means:
to protect the weak against the arbitrariness of the strong.

[FR] — Shared Truth: Without It, There Is No Democracy

We must state a simple truth: democracy does not rest solely on ballots.
It rests on something more fragile: shared facts.
Without a shared truth, there is no longer a majority:
only tribes.

[UK] — When Truth Is Privatized, Democracy Is Sold

And we must name another danger: the privatization of the public sphere.
When the space of debate depends on private infrastructures, truth can become a product.And when truth becomes a product, democracy becomes negotiable.
We do not want a world in which popular sovereignty dissolves into platforms.

[FR] — Science: A Method of Peace in Disagreement

So how can democracy be protected without sliding into single-minded thinking?Through a very simple idea: method.Truth is not a belief. It is not what suits one side.
It is what resists our preferences.As Étienne Klein puts it, there exists a taste for truth — and it must be cultivated.
But a taste for truth is not enough: discipline is required.
And that discipline is science: not as an ideology, but as a method of doubt, proof, and correction.Science is a method of peace in disagreement.

[DE] — Without Method, Everything Becomes Narrative

Without method, everything becomes narrative.
And when everything becomes narrative, the most violent narrative prevails.A democracy does not fall only when it loses an election.
It falls when it loses reality.

[FR / DE / UK] — Truth, Science, Democracy

Without a shared truth, there is no longer a majority: only tribes.
When truth is privatized, democracy is sold.
Science is not an opinion. It is a method of peace in disagreement.
Without method, everything becomes narrative.
And the most violent narrative prevails.
Without a shared truth, there can be no stable democracy.
Without stable democracy, there can be no common project.
Without a common project, there is no MEGA.

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V — From Words to Action: Timeline and Commitment

[FR] — France: Renouncing the Comfort of Ambiguity (Extended Deterrence)

For this discourse to be credible, it must come at a price.The United Kingdom accepts calling into question a global institutional privilege.
Germany relinquishes the illusion that industry alone is sufficient and commits to placing it at the service of the common good.And France, today, renounces the comfort of ambiguity.We state this clearly:
France is prepared to evolve its posture and to explicitly extend the protection of its deterrence to its European partners who commit themselves to this common political act.This is a grave decision.
It is taken with lucidity.
It is taken for one reason: peace requires ultimate guarantees that are legible and credible.And I add this, without equivocation:
France, too, holds the right of veto on the Security Council.
And we say it with the same level of exigency as that which we uphold here:
what we demand of the world, we apply to ourselves.

[DE] — Power and Limits: What Sets Us Apart

Law needs a shield, and the shield needs law.Our project unites the two: capacity and legitimacy.
Deterrence and rule.
Power and limits.We are building a force to prevent war, not to impose it.

[UK — Free Seas, Secure Flows: Security Is Global

European security is not determined solely on land.It is determined along maritime routes, through straits, ports, cables, and logistics.
We will protect the flows that sustain our economies.Because a continent can be paralysed without invasion — if it is cut off from the world.

[UK] — The World Reads Our Timelines, Not Our Intentions

Our adversaries do not read our intentions. They read our timelines.They do not look at our principles. They look at our ability to translate them into action.In a hard world, slowness becomes a signal.

[FR] — MEGA TIMELINE: 100 Days / 24 Months / 2030

We are announcing a timeline now.Because a doctrine without a timeline is nothing more than a speech.

[DE] — Method Principle: MEGA Core + Circles

MEGA moves forward in circles.
A MEGA Core, formed by willing states, decides quickly on what is essential:
collective security, critical infrastructure, protection of flows.Others may join as soon as they accept the common political contract.
No one is excluded — but no one can block collective survival.Openness, yes.
Paralysis, no.

[UK] — Phase 1: 0–100 Days

In the first one hundred days, we undertake five actions:First, we create the MEGA Core,
and we adopt internal majority decision-making on defence, energy, cyber, and vital infrastructure.Second, we launch the Sovereignty Dividend:
any strategic procurement is conditional on transparency, value sharing, training, and employment.Third, we conduct a public audit of critical dependencies:
payments, cloud and data, semiconductors, munitions, energy.Fourth, we initiate the first coordinated orders for vital capabilities:
ground-based air defence, drones, cybersecurity, infrastructure protection.Fifth, at the United Nations, the United Kingdom and France jointly advance the limitation of the veto for major crimes and acts of aggression, and referral to the General Assembly when the Security Council is paralysed.

[FR] — Phase 2: 6–24 Months

Over the next twenty-four months, we deliver visible results.We launch multi-year procurement programmes:
munitions, air defence, air maintenance, cyber-defence.We organise distributed production and pooled stockpiles, to guarantee endurance over time.We deploy the first operational sovereign infrastructures:
European payment rails for administrations and critical businesses, a strategic cloud, reinforced cybersecurity.We establish a continuity coalition with Canada and Indo-Pacific partners:
maritime security, cable protection, cyber exercises, protection of flows.
And we strengthen democratic oversight:
regular audits, parliamentary scrutiny, anti-capture mechanisms.

[DE] — Phase 3 : 2030 Horizon

By the 2030 horizon, we aim for credible autonomy.The capacity to endure over time,
real industrial sovereignty,
effective cyber and space resilience,
and comprehensive protection of critical infrastructure.An open Europe, but robust:
open through circles of accession,
robust in the face of coercion and blackmail.And a world order upheld by rules that are finally defended,
because a rule without capacity is nothing more than a wish.

[UK] — Neutralisation of Blockages: Not Exclusion, Resilience

I want to say this clearly: neutralising blockages is not an act of authoritarianism.It is the opposite.
It is the protection of peoples.We do not fight illiberal drift by censoring citizens.
We fight it by removing the conditions that allow it to take hold:
social fear, powerlessness, loss of trust.And if a government chooses to violate fundamental rules —
free elections, independent justice, human dignity —
then it will not be excluded:
it will exclude itself.

[FR] — Open Europe: A Political Act

We repeat it:
Europe is not a geography.
Europe is a political act.And that act is open:
to those who want to build,
to those who want to defend the rule of law,
to those who choose a shared future over fragmentation.

[DE] — Final Warning: The Counter-Philosophy of the Enlightenment

We must be lucid:
a counter-philosophy is advancing.It despises equality.
It despises truth.
It treats democracy as a weakness to be corrected.We affirm the opposite:
democracy is our most demanding invention.And it will survive only if we defend it
through social cohesion,
through truth,
and through the rule of law.

[FR / DE / UK] — MEGA in the Face of Imperial Retrenchments

Let us be clear:
MEGA was not born in a vacuum.It is a response to a global movement
that advocates a return to the law of the strongest,
the fragmentation of alliances,
identity retreat,
and the substitution of law by force.This movement takes different names depending on the country.
It sometimes presents itself as a return to greatness.
It promises protection through isolation
and sovereignty through domination.We affirm the opposite.Greatness does not arise from withdrawal,
but from the capacity to cooperate without dissolving.
Sovereignty is not defended by destroying rules,
but by making them enforceable.
And the protection of peoples does not come from fear of the other,
but from the solidity of what is shared.MEGA is a response to these retrenchments.
Not against a country.
Not against a people.
But against a vision of the world
where force replaces law
and where democracy becomes an obstacle to be bypassed.

[UK] — Closing: A Simple Promise

not promise that it will be easy.
We promise that it will be done.Because the future does not wait for unanimity.
And because history does not forgive impotence.

[FR] — Conclusion: Returning to Saint-Exupéry

We end where we began.
We do not inherit the Earth.
We borrow it from our children.So we do what our time demands:
we stop being naïve, without becoming cynical.
We become capable.MEGA.
Make Europe Great Again.
Make Earth Great Again.

[DE] — Conclusion: Power Under Control

The force we are building is not an imperialism.
It is a discipline of survival.Limited power.
Protected law.
Non-negotiable dignity.Make Europe Great Again.
Make Earth Great Again.

[UK] — Conclusion: Free Seas, a Livable World

A livable world is a world
where flows remain free,
where rules hold,
where truth is not for sale.Make Europe Great Again.
Make Earth Great Again.We thank you.

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Analyses

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From Democracy to Dictatorship: A Recurring Pattern?

Structural Analysis, Empirical Validation, and Predictive Scope of a Mechanism Driving Political Regime Transformation

April 6, 2026

The apparent diversity of contemporary political trajectories conceals a reality more coherent than it seems. Russia, the United States, Hungary, China, Israel—each represents a distinct context, heterogeneous institutional traditions, and specific temporalities. Taken individually, each calls for a particular reading. Taken together, they create the impression of irreducible disorder.This analysis starts from the opposite premise: behind this heterogeneity unfolds a common mechanism. It is not a matter of ideological convergence or political alignment, but of a structural dynamic. In other words, what repeats is not the content of regimes, but the logic of their transformation.The tipping point can be identified with precision: the capture of resources. As long as power remains arbitral, it organizes distribution without becoming its exclusive center. When it appropriates flows—economic, institutional, informational—it changes in nature. It ceases to be a function and becomes a node. This shift is decisive: it transforms the entire system without requiring an immediate formal rupture.From that point onward, a cumulative dynamic sets in. The securing of power becomes a priority, no longer as a condition of stability, but as a condition of preservation. It entails the progressive neutralization of counter-powers, the reconfiguration of institutions, the increasing control of information, and, ultimately, the transformation of reality itself.This process is often gradual, sometimes imperceptible in its early stages. That is precisely what gives it its strength: each step may appear justifiable when taken in isolation. It is their sequence that constitutes the pattern.From that point onward, the challenge is no longer simply to understand, but to recognize—in time—the thresholds beyond which a system ceases to be reversible.Full analysis (27 pages), available below for direct reading and download.

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Hormuz: The Question Europe Dares Not Ask

10 March 2026

In a recent op-ed devoted to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, I raised a simple question: can control of a strategic maritime passage become a global economic weapon?Recent developments now invite an even more troubling question. The possible closure of the strait and the progressive militarisation of its security are already producing tangible effects: slowing oil flows, soaring maritime insurance premiums and a surge in global oil prices. It is not even necessary for global trade to be interrupted for the economic impact to be significant. In a market largely driven by risk anticipation, the mere prospect of a prolonged disruption of a chokepoint such as Hormuz is enough to push the price of oil sharply upward.Energy tension is thus becoming an explicit instrument of strategic pressure. Iranian officials have warned that continued escalation could drive oil prices to 200 dollars per barrel. Asked about rising prices, Donald Trump himself downplayed the increase, stating that higher oil prices would represent “a very small price to pay for the protection of the United States and the world,” adding that “only fools would think otherwise.” Under these conditions, rising energy prices no longer appear merely as a collateral effect of the crisis, but as a strategic variable consciously integrated into the ongoing confrontation.Yet this situation does not affect all powers in the same way. Major importing economies — foremost among them Europe — directly bear the rising cost of energy and maritime transport. By contrast, several producing powers now possess a far greater capacity to absorb the shock of high oil prices. The United States has become one of the world’s leading producers thanks to shale oil, while Russia continues to derive a substantial share of its public revenues from energy exports. In this context, a persistently high oil price does not represent an equivalent strategic constraint for all actors.In this environment, the reaction of the Gulf states also deserves attention. Several of them have publicly expressed concern about what they perceive as insufficient protection of energy routes by the United States, historically the guarantor of maritime security in the region. This criticism is not trivial. It suggests that the actors most directly exposed to a potential closure of the strait do not believe that American power is currently seeking to restore maximum security as rapidly as possible.This asymmetry becomes even more striking when combined with recent political statements that tend to minimise its implications. Rising oil prices have been downplayed by American officials, while the impact of a high oil price on the Russian economy has sometimes been explicitly minimised. At the same time, the possibility of easing energy sanctions targeting Moscow is now being discussed, while some European leaders continue to advocate their removal.Taken individually, each of these elements might be explained by circumstances specific to the current crisis. Yet their combination — sustained tension around the Strait of Hormuz, structurally higher oil prices, criticism from Gulf states regarding insufficient American maritime protection, debates about easing sanctions on Russian energy exports, political minimisation of the impact of high oil prices on the Russian economy, and persistent divisions within the European Union on energy policy — now forms a pattern of signals whose coherence deserves closer examination.A further question also arises on the military level. Effective control of a strait such as Hormuz would in principle require the capacity to prevent asymmetric attacks originating from the coastline — fast attack craft, drones, naval drones or coastal missiles. In practice, this implies the ability to control the coastal areas from which such threats might be launched.Several military analysts have recently pointed out the apparent absence, in the deployments discussed, of amphibious forces or ground troops capable of ensuring such coastal control. François Chauvancy, a former French brigadier general, has publicly expressed his puzzlement at a configuration that does not correspond to the usual patterns of American strategic planning.This observation is all the more striking given that the scenario of a blockade of the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz has been studied in military planning for more than half a century, particularly since the Iranian revolution of 1979. It is therefore not an unforeseen threat but a classic scenario of strategic planning in the region. Under these circumstances, the hypothesis of simple unpreparedness appears difficult to reconcile with the long tradition of American military planning in this theatre. The absence of certain elements normally associated with the full control of a strategic strait inevitably raises questions about the actual objectives being pursued.The convergence of these signals produces a more troubling configuration. The energy tensions generated by the Hormuz crisis could create economic effects simultaneously favourable to the two main producing powers involved in global strategic rivalry — the United States and Russia — while the heaviest costs would be borne by major importing economies, foremost among them Europe.This material convergence does not occur in a political vacuum. Some American proposals for resolving the Ukrainian conflict now strikingly reproduce several demands formulated by the Kremlin since the beginning of the war: recognition of territorial gains obtained by force, the long-term neutrality of Ukraine, and limitations on its military capabilities. Several analyses have pointed out that the very structure of these proposals closely reflects Russian positions expressed during previous negotiations, to the point that certain formulations appear almost directly inspired by Russian diplomatic rhetoric.Should such a framework prevail, it would effectively legitimise the results of an armed aggression — including in areas that Russia has not fully conquered militarily — and would constitute a major rupture with the principles that have structured the international order since 1945.This is not to assert the existence of a coordinated plan between Washington and Moscow. But the history of international relations reminds us of a frequently forgotten reality: alliances are never immutable. From Bismarck’s diplomacy to the German-Soviet pact of 1939, shifts in alignment occur whenever changes in material interests make unexpected rapprochements between rival powers possible. In this sense, the Hormuz crisis may function as a revealing moment.In this context, the effort undertaken by France to secure maritime circulation and protect European interests deserves recognition, alongside the more limited contributions made by other European countries. It reflects a genuine willingness to act at a time when the traditional mechanisms of collective security appear increasingly fragile.Yet this commitment also reveals a more uncomfortable reality. Faced with a strategic crisis of this magnitude, Europe remains largely dependent on the initiative of a single state. The question therefore becomes unavoidable: should France bear alone the defence of European interests in an increasingly unstable strategic environment? And more importantly, does it truly possess the means to do so?The long-term security of a global energy chokepoint exceeds the capabilities of any single state. If Europe truly wishes to protect its supplies, stabilise its trade routes and exert influence in international crises, it will sooner or later need to possess the full attributes of power — diplomatic, economic and military — necessary to defend its own interests.Placing this burden permanently on a single country would in any case be both unfair and ineffective. One cannot expect a state to assume a disproportionate share of the continent’s strategic security while simultaneously reproaching it for the budgetary weight of such a commitment.In a world where the security of energy routes depends on the military power of a few states, the effective control of a strategic maritime passage can become a lever of global economic influence. If this were the case, the question raised by the Hormuz crisis would regain its full significance: can the control of an energy chokepoint become a global economic weapon — and could it, for the first time since 1945, begin to fracture the system of alliances that structures the international order?Jean-Philippe Battédou

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The Awakening of the Leviathan

29 March 2026

introduction

The strategic environment in which Europe operates has changed in nature. It is no longer a matter of gradual deterioration or a succession of crises, but of a rupture. Open war on the European continent, the expansion of conflict zones in the Middle East, energy pressures, and shifting alliances: these dynamics do not simply accumulate, they converge. What is taking shape is not a temporary instability, but a structural transformation of the international system. It is no longer stabilized by predictable balances; it is becoming once again a conflictual space, shaped by explicit power relations.This transformation is accompanied by a brutalization of the world. The return of high-intensity warfare, the reassertion of imperial logics, and the rise of illiberal or authoritarian regimes are challenging the balances that had structured the international order since the end of the Cold War. The Western liberal model, long perceived as a stabilizing horizon, is now being contested in its very foundations. This contestation is not limited to discourse; it is embedded in concrete power practices that privilege force over legal regulation.Europe is directly exposed to a convergence of strategic pressures. To the East, Russia constitutes a direct military threat. To the West, the United States—long the pillar of European security—can no longer be assumed to be an ally and must be considered as a power whose interests may directly conflict with those of Europe. At the global level, China imposes a systemic rivalry based on structuring industrial and technological dependencies. To the South, African demographic dynamics are likely, in the medium to long term, to generate major political, migratory, and security effects. These tensions are compounded by Europe’s persistent dependence on external supplies—whether energy or industrial—which limits its capacity for autonomy in a conflictual environment.Within this framework, the regulatory instruments inherited from the post-1945 order and consolidated after the Cold War are being weakened. International law remains, but its effectiveness is now structurally limited. The repeated violations of international humanitarian law, widely documented across multiple theaters of operation, attest to this. When established, war crimes do not fall under simple political or media qualification; they belong to a regime of imprescriptibility that extends their effects over time. Contemporary conflicts no longer disappear with the end of hostilities. They accumulate, structure relations between states, and durably reintroduce conflictuality at the heart of the system.A limit thus emerges. Law remains, but it is no longer sufficient to contain dynamics now structured by power relations. This transformation does not remain confined to the external environment of political entities; it tends to diffuse within them. It is precisely at this point that the European question shifts.The threat facing the Union can no longer be understood solely as external. It is also internal. Recurrent political blockages, strategic divergences between Member States, and certain forms of objective alignment with external powers introduce tensions at the very core of the Union that affect its cohesion. The issue is no longer only the capacity to confront external adversaries, but the internal solidity of the whole.In this context, the characteristics of the institutional system take on a new meaning. Designed to organize the coexistence of sovereignties, they now produce the opposite effects when strategic conditions deteriorate. What was meant to guarantee balance becomes a factor of imbalance.A central question thus emerges: in a conflictual environment, can a system based on coordination and convergence effectively respond to situations of deep strategic divergence? This is the question that now confronts the European Union.

I. EUROPEAN VULNERABILITY AND IMPOTENCE

A. Vulnerability

1. Internal blockage as a factor of political disarmament

The internal vulnerability of the European Union is not an abstract institutional issue; it stems from a precise, identifiable, and operational mechanism: the right of veto. Originally conceived as a guarantee of sovereignty for Member States, it now produces the opposite effect in a conflictual environment. What was meant to protect has become what prevents action.The principle is well known: certain key decisions require unanimity. In practice, this means that a state representing a few million inhabitants can block a decision affecting more than 440 million citizens. This imbalance is not merely arithmetic; it is strategic. It grants a minority an absolute blocking power over issues that may directly concern collective security. This capacity to block is not theoretical.It has been repeatedly demonstrated in the behavior of Hungary under Viktor Orbán. On several occasions, Budapest has delayed, conditioned, or weakened the adoption of European sanctions against Russia, as well as financial and military aid to Ukraine. These blockages have forced the Union to negotiate under internal constraint on issues directly related to the security of the continent. At the same time, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Péter Szijjártó, has acknowledged maintaining regular contacts with Sergey Lavrov on the margins of European meetings, including during negotiations on common EU positions.These dynamics are not limited to a single state. The joint opposition of Hungary and Slovakia has, on multiple occasions, slowed down, diluted, or temporarily blocked decisions relating to support for Ukraine, sanctions regimes, or certain energy policies. In a particularly revealing episode, Hungary blocked a €90 billion European loan to Ukraine, explicitly conditioning its release on the resumption of Russian oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline, which had been damaged following a Russian attack. In a different context, funds belonging to a Ukrainian bank, transiting through Hungarian territory, were immobilized, directly affecting the financial capacity of a country at war.Taken individually, these facts could be interpreted as expressions of divergent national interests. Taken together, they reveal a different configuration. When a Member State participates in shaping a collective position targeting a power identified as a strategic adversary, while simultaneously maintaining direct and continuous exchanges with that same power at the very moment of deliberation, it introduces a rupture in the integrity of the decision-making process. The problem thus changes in nature. It is no longer merely an internal political disagreement, but the presence, at the very heart of the European decision-making process, of an actor capable of blocking, delaying, or reshaping a decision while interacting directly with the power concerned by that decision.Under these conditions, the veto no longer simply expresses national sovereignty. Combined with such practices, it becomes a vector of strategic vulnerability. A minority of actors can prevent action or alter its conditions in a way compatible with interests external to the Union. This shift is decisive: it transforms a legal mechanism into an operational weakness.The consequences of this mechanism are no longer theoretical. They manifest in the difficulty, or even impossibility, of taking rapid and coherent decisions on critical issues. Where a political entity should be able to adjust quickly in response to a threat, the European Union is constrained by a system that makes any decision dependent on the full consent of its components, including when some pursue divergent, even contradictory, interests. The issue is therefore no longer one of decision-making speed, but of the very capacity to act coherently.A power that can decide only by unanimity, even in situations affecting its security, effectively accepts that its action can be neutralized from within. Institutional constraint no longer merely slows action; it becomes a condition of its partial impossibility. In other words, vulnerability is no longer an external risk: it is embedded in the very functioning of the system. In a conflictual environment, such a configuration amounts to a form of structural disarmament.Ultimately, what still appears, in a classical legal reading, as a guarantee of national sovereignty reveals itself, in a strategic reading, as a mechanism of collective fragilization. The veto no longer protects the Union; it exposes it.

2. Security breach

The vulnerability described is no longer merely an institutional dysfunction; it constitutes a security breach. The problem is no longer only that the European Union may be blocked in its ability to act. It is that, in certain configurations, a Member State can act within the system in a manner incompatible with the security of the whole, without any effective mechanism to put an end to it.This situation introduces a fundamental rupture. In any coherent political architecture, membership implies a minimum convergence on vital interests, and above all the impossibility of acting against collective security while benefiting from common protection. Yet within the current framework of the European Union, this limit does not exist. The examples previously mentioned do not merely reflect political divergence; they are part of a broader configuration of interactions between certain European actors and external powers. The regular contacts between Hungarian and Russian officials provide an explicit illustration, but these dynamics are neither confined to a single state nor to a single power.Foreign influence operations, particularly Russian ones, have been documented on multiple occasions: indirect party financing, information campaigns, media relays, and destabilization strategies aimed at fragmenting European societies and weakening the Union’s decision-making capacity. These strategies do not necessarily seek direct control; they aim to create points of blockage within European political systems themselves. In some cases, the reported facts go beyond influence. Documented elements indicate that a proposal originating from Russian services envisaged staging an attempted attack against Viktor Orbán in order to influence the political and electoral context. Whether or not such an operation was carried out does not change its significance: it demonstrates both the capability and the willingness to intervene directly in the political process of a Member State. In France, the positions taken by the Rassemblement National on Russia, sanctions, and support for Ukraine are part of a dynamic which, without formal coordination, objectively converges with Russian strategic interests.These dynamics are compounded by forms of intervention originating from the American sphere. Steve Bannon has explicitly worked to structure European political networks hostile to integration, while Elon Musk intervenes directly in the European public debate by amplifying certain political forces and challenging institutions. These interventions do not stem from formal state coordination; nonetheless, they contribute to an environment of influence that affects internal political balances. More directly, forms of political interference have been identified in the context of national legal proceedings. In the judicial case involving Marine Le Pen, American officials have been accused of attempting to influence the assessment of a potential ineligibility sentence, while the French judiciary has raised the possibility of external pressure or sanctions targeting judges involved in the case. At the same time, Charles Kushner has multiplied statements and initiatives perceived in France as forms of interference in national political life. In this context, certain internal political positions take on a particular significance.At this point, the problem changes scale. It is no longer merely a question of a Member State blocking a decision, but of the possibility for external powers to find within the Union political, institutional, or informational relays capable of affecting its functioning. This results in a major asymmetry: the Union is constrained by its own rules, while its adversaries can exploit its internal vulnerabilities by relying on endogenous political dynamics. What, in a stabilized framework, was a feature of democratic pluralism becomes, in a conflictual environment, a vector of strategic penetration.Faced with these dynamics, European institutions have not remained passive. On several occasions, Member States as well as numerous Members of the European Parliament have denounced the paralyzing effects of the veto and called for its circumvention or abolition in strategic domains. The blockages related to Ukraine have notably led to explicit calls for a broader use of qualified majority voting in foreign and security policy. At the same time, foreign interference and the links between certain European political forces and external powers have been the subject of repeated warnings within the European Parliament. Resolutions and reports have highlighted Russian influence attempts, as well as transnational support dynamics benefiting so-called “patriotic” parties, positioned on the far right, whose orientations converge with interests external to the Union.These reactions reveal a turning point: the issue is no longer perceived merely as an internal political divergence, but as a systemic vulnerability. In other words, European institutions themselves are beginning to frame what was previously considered pluralism as a matter of security. The stakes are decisive. The classical distinction between external threat and internal threat is beginning to blur. European vulnerability no longer results solely from pressure exerted by external powers, but from the possibility that such pressure may find functional support within the Union itself.Thus, what once appeared as internal political divergence may, in certain configurations, produce effects comparable to those of a hostile action. Without any formal coordination, the objective alignment of certain behaviors with the interests of an adversarial power is sufficient to create a situation of structural fragility. The central question is no longer the management of disagreements between Member States, but the Union’s capacity to protect itself against internal dynamics that undermine its security. Yet in the absence of mechanisms for exclusion, effective suspension, or operational circumvention, this capacity does not exist.The European system is therefore confronted with a major contradiction: it implicitly recognizes the existence of external threats, yet deprives itself of the means to address the internal vulnerabilities that have become one of their primary vectors.

B. Structural impotence

The internal vulnerability identified does not merely constitute a dysfunction of the European system; it reveals a deeper limitation: the inadequacy of the legal framework in relation to the real conditions of conflict. Law remains the foundation of the European Union, but it no longer ensures its protection once the very rules that organize it become vectors of impotence.This limitation appears clearly in the institutional architecture of the Union. In the field of foreign and security policy, Article 24 of the Treaty on European Union maintains the requirement of unanimity, allowing a single Member State to block decisions engaging the whole. The mechanisms intended to circumvent this constraint—passerelle clauses, enhanced cooperation—remain limited, complex to activate, and politically costly. As for the mechanism provided for in Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, intended to sanction a State in the event of a serious breach of Union values, it relies on a particularly demanding decision-making architecture: a four-fifths majority of the Council to establish a clear risk of breach (Article 7(1)), then unanimity in the European Council—excluding the State concerned—to determine the existence of a serious and persistent breach (Article 7(2)), before a qualified majority may be used to adopt sanctions (Article 7(3)). Under these conditions, the effective activation of the mechanism remains highly improbable in the face of coordinated blockages. Thus, legal instruments exist, but their activation remains conditioned by the very constraints they are supposed to overcome. The system closes in on itself: law organizes procedures, but does not guarantee their effectiveness in situations of strategic conflict.This is not a failure of application, but an internal contradiction. The federalist model, in its legal form, rests on an implicit assumption: that of a minimum convergence among its members and a shared respect for common rules. This assumption finds its original expression in the Ventotene Manifesto, which posits the possibility of political integration based on overcoming conflicting national logics. Yet this assumption is no longer valid. The strategic environment has evolved, and with it the behavior of actors. Some States can now, while formally respecting the rules, divert their effects in favor of divergent, even opposing, interests. The previously analyzed examples provide a direct illustration: the law is not violated, it is used. It becomes possible to support Ukraine in the name of European security while maintaining, through the very mechanisms of the system, the conditions for financing the Russian war effort. The veto is exercised in accordance with the treaties; blockages are legally grounded; diplomatic interactions formally fall within State sovereignty. Yet the effect produced runs counter to the very objective of the system: ensuring the coherence and security of the whole.At this stage, the system reveals its own incoherence. A legal order that cannot prevent one of its members from undermining its functioning to the detriment of the whole reveals a structural limitation. It is no longer merely an imperfect framework, but a system that does not contain within itself the means of its own preservation. This contradiction directly affects the federalist thesis: a federalism based exclusively on law presupposes the capacity to guarantee the unity of the system in the face of deviant behavior. Yet in the absence of an effective mechanism of exclusion or operational constraint, this guarantee does not exist. Law organizes, but it does not protect. The deadlock thus becomes evident. It is not possible to build lasting political cohesion on a framework that simultaneously allows full participation in the system and the possibility of undermining its fundamental objectives. In other words, there is no viable federalism without a capacity for exclusion.

II. NECESSITY OF A CORE OF POWER

A. Political necessity

The deadlock identified cannot be resolved within the existing legal framework. Legal mechanisms, far from enabling action, condition its impossibility. As a result, the nature of the question changes: it ceases to be legal and becomes political. In other words, a political necessity emerges. The issue is no longer one of interpreting or adapting the rules, but of the capacity to act despite them when circumstances require it. This shift is not theoretical; it is already underway. Faced with blockages linked to unanimity, the European Union has gradually moved part of its action outside the ordinary framework of the treaties. The financing of military aid to Ukraine has thus been organized through the European Peace Facility, an intergovernmental instrument placed outside the Union’s budget in order to circumvent classical legal constraints. At the same time, parallel formats of action have emerged: the formation of coalitions of the willing, bringing together a limited number of States ready to act without waiting for unanimity, as well as the multiplication of bilateral security agreements and variable-geometry military cooperation. These arrangements make it possible to maintain operational capacity where the institutional framework produces inertia. This shift is not marginal. It reveals a displacement of the center of decision-making: when the legal framework prevents action, action is reconfigured elsewhere. The gap between law and practice thus continues to widen, reflecting the growing inadequacy of the system in the face of strategic demands.Under these conditions, an operational sequence already emerges in outline: when the framework prevents action, it is bypassed in practice; when this bypassing becomes insufficient, the implicit suspension of certain constraints becomes necessary; only then can a legal formalization adapted to the new reality take place. Bypass, suspend, formalize: this sequence does not stem from a doctrinal choice, but from a functional necessity in a conflictual environment.Once this necessity is established, the logic of the Leviathan emerges. This is not merely the theoretical construct derived from classical political philosophy, but its extension within a contemporary strategic context. The European Leviathan does not arise from an abstract contract between individuals, but from a necessity imposed by a conflictual environment: ensuring the protection of a political entity confronted with external threats and internal vulnerabilities. Every political structure ultimately rests on a function of protection. This function implies a counterpart: effective adherence to common rules and respect for the conditions that ensure the security of the whole. In the European case, this logic now extends beyond the framework initially envisaged by the founders: it no longer concerns only internal regulation, but the capacity to confront hostile dynamics, whether external or relayed within the system itself. This link between protection and obedience constitutes the point of equilibrium of any political entity. An entity can guarantee the security of its members only if it has, in return, the capacity to impose the conditions that make such security possible. When this link weakens, the coherence of the whole is affected.The distinction between friend and enemy does not result from a normative choice; it emerges as a consequence of conflict. As soon as certain actors structure their action according to this logic, it becomes operative for all others. It is already at work in the international environment and now extends into political systems themselves, where internal behaviors can produce effects converging with those of external actors.In the United States, certain components of the “MAGA” movement explicitly embrace an antagonistic conception of politics, including through reference to Carl Schmitt. JD Vance has cited him by name, and part of his intellectual circle develops a vision of politics structured by the opposition between irreconcilable camps, incorporating the designation of internal and systemic enemies as well as support for European political forces in rupture with the institutional balances of the Union. This structuring is not confined to a single space. On the Russian side, it is embedded in an explicit doctrine, based on a civilizational opposition between a hostile West and a sovereign space to be defended. This reading, notably advanced by Alexander Dugin and relayed in the strategic discourse of power, structures both external action—particularly in Ukraine—and influence strategies aimed at fragmenting European societies by relying on internal relays.Thus, the initial point is confirmed: the friend/enemy logic is not a matter of choice, but of constraint. Once mobilized by antagonistic powers, it ceases to be a mere analytical framework and becomes a structuring mode of action for all actors. What once belonged to a theoretical reading of politics is now embedded in the concrete practices of power. Refusing to acknowledge it does not allow one to escape it; it amounts to being exposed to it without protection. One may refuse to name this reality, but refusing to name it does not suspend its effects.

B. The decisive role of France

In this context, the decisive role of France becomes clear. The question of the ultimate security guarantee moves to the forefront. The assumption of stable American protection can no longer be taken for granted: recent developments have revealed the possibility of strategic misalignment, or even open hostility. No fully credible alternative currently exists at the continental level. The United Kingdom, although a nuclear power, remains structurally tied to the United States. Only one fully sovereign deterrence capability remains in Europe: that of France. This reality is fully recognized at the European level. It is accompanied by growing attention to France’s internal political developments, particularly in view of the 2027 presidential election. Several analyses and international media reports have explicitly presented the prospect of the Rassemblement National coming to power as a source of concern for both France and the European Union. This concern does not stem from abstract ideological divergence; it is grounded in concrete empirical elements. Marine Le Pen has publicly expressed support for Viktor Orbán, notably in the context of his positions on Ukraine and on European sanctions. These positions have, on several occasions, contributed to blocking or weakening Union decisions regarding support for Kyiv. This convergence does not amount to formal alignment, but it produces identifiable strategic effects, consistent with the dynamics previously analyzed.Accordingly, France’s strategic singularity lies not only in its military capabilities, but in the political stability of its orientations. In a context where French deterrence constitutes the main possible foundation of an autonomous European security architecture, any internal evolution affecting its doctrine, alliances, or conditions of use would have immediate consequences at the continental level. This directly extends the previous observation: European vulnerability does not depend solely on external factors, but on the ability of its own political systems to maintain coherence with their fundamental interests. A power whose strategic center of gravity becomes politically uncertain introduces, by itself, a factor of systemic destabilization.The strategic conclusion therefore emerges without ambiguity. The response cannot be legal. Only a political recomposition based on a core capable of acting, constraining, and, ultimately, excluding can restore an effective capacity for protection. This is not one option among others, but the only coherent response to the current configuration.Jean-Philippe Battédou

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The majoritarian system in a tripolar landscape: why proportional representation is becoming a condition for democratic stability. Toward a fractal democratic legitimacy?

26 March 2026

I. The empirical transformation of the French political system

1. Stabilization of a tripolar landscape

The French political system can no longer be analyzed through the bipolar framework that historically structured political life under the Fifth Republic. This framework was based on the existence of two blocs capable of aggregating broad electoral coalitions and alternating in power. It assumed that, beyond competition, each camp possessed sufficient integrative capacity to produce a stable political majority.This configuration has gradually disappeared. Since the mid-2010s, the French electoral landscape has come to be structured around three blocs of comparable strength: a central bloc, a far-right bloc, and a far-left bloc. None of these groups is able, on a lasting basis, to exceed the threshold required to form a broad social majority on its own. This tripartite structure is no longer the result of a specific electoral conjuncture; it is becoming a durable feature.This diagnosis does not rely solely on a snapshot observation of electoral results. It is widely shared by analysts from different intellectual traditions, such as Pascal Perrineau, Roland Cayrol, and Alain Duhamel, who converge in highlighting the stabilization of three relatively impermeable political poles. This analytical convergence is now corroborated by the dynamics observed in recent municipal elections. The first round of the 2026 elections, held in nearly 35,000 municipalities, reveals a dual significant development: on the one hand, the rise of forces located at the extremes of the political spectrum—particularly the National Rally in several major cities and La France Insoumise in many urban centers; on the other hand, the growing difficulty of the central bloc to structure a dominant political offer on its own. In certain local configurations, this dynamic results in second rounds involving three or four competing forces, none of which possesses an obvious capacity for aggregation. Far from contradicting the hypothesis of a durable tripartition, these electoral outcomes constitute a concrete manifestation of it, observable at the territorial level.The primary consequence of this evolution is the gradual disappearance of the aggregative capacity that characterized the bipolar model. Where two blocs could, through internal alliances, absorb diverse tendencies and produce a majority, three blocs instead tend to neutralize one another. None can prevail durably without the support of another, and none possesses the political resources necessary to achieve a stable fusion with its competitors.Tripartition transforms the very nature of political competition. The system is no longer structured by a logic of alternation between two possible majorities, but by competition among three relative minorities. The central question is therefore no longer which bloc prevails, but under what conditions a bloc can access power without possessing a corresponding social majority.

2. The disappearance of the majoritarian fact

The two-round majoritarian system historically produced what French institutional practice has referred to as the “majoritarian fact”: the existence of a clear, coherent, and stable parliamentary majority, capable of sustainably supporting governmental action. This mechanism relied on the ability of the second round to aggregate political forces around two dominant poles and to transform a relative majority of votes into an absolute majority of seats.In a tripolar system, this mechanism breaks down. The second round no longer necessarily produces a homogeneous majority; it becomes a mechanism of relative selection among competing blocs, without any guarantee of durable aggregation. Recent electoral outcomes have thus led to the emergence of relative majorities, incapable of governing without resorting to constraining procedural instruments. These configurations make it possible to cross an electoral threshold without establishing an autonomous governing capacity: the resulting majority appears more as an institutional construction than as the expression of a structured political endorsement.The evolution of the left-wing coalition formed in 2022 under the banner of the New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES) provides a particularly illuminating example. Established as an electoral alliance aimed at maximizing the number of seats against the central bloc and the far right, it did not result in the formation of a unified parliamentary group and quickly fragmented in its internal functioning. Strategic and ideological divergences among its components—La France Insoumise (LFI), the Socialist Party (PS), Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV), and the French Communist Party (PCF)—intensified over time, making it impossible to stabilize a common political line. This dynamic was confirmed in subsequent electoral sequences, where the different components of the left adopted distinct, even competing, strategies, illustrating the essentially tactical rather than structural nature of the initial alliance.The central Macronist bloc exhibits a comparable evolution. The presidential coalition, structured around Ensemble and bringing together Renaissance, the MoDem, and Horizons, lost its absolute majority in the 2022 legislative elections and saw its relative position further deteriorate in subsequent ballots. This electoral weakening has been accompanied by growing internal tensions among its various components, each developing its own strategies and perspectives ahead of 2027. Divisions between different sensitivities—liberal, social, territorial—as well as personal rivalries among leaders have contributed to weakening the overall coherence of the bloc. Difficulties in parliamentary coordination, the absence of a clear strategic line, and the multiplication of competing initiatives have thus transformed the presidential majority into a de facto coalition rather than an integrated political ensemble.This evolution is notably reflected in the repeated use of instruments designed to rationalize parliamentarianism, in particular Article 49, paragraph 3 of the Constitution, which allows the adoption of a bill without a vote unless a motion of censure is passed. The frequent use of this mechanism reflects less a contingent drift than a structural transformation: in the absence of a stable majority, political decision-making tends to shift from the terrain of deliberation to that of institutional constraint.The “majoritarian fact” does not formally disappear; it transforms. It becomes a fragile institutional construction, resting on precarious balances rather than on genuine political cohesion. The parliamentary majority, when it exists, no longer necessarily corresponds to a clearly identifiable social majority. It may result from threshold effects and electoral mechanisms that amplify a relative minority. This gap between institutional majority and sociopolitical reality constitutes a first indication of misalignment between institutions and the structure of the electorate.

3. Local indicators: the case of municipal elections

Observation of municipal elections makes it possible to grasp, at a particularly concrete level, the effects of the majoritarian electoral system in a context of political fragmentation. This electoral system, which combines a majoritarian mechanism with a governability bonus, produces particularly visible amplification effects.In approximately 33,000 municipalities, mainly small ones, mayors are elected in the first round, often with only a single list in contention. In 2026, this situation reaches an unprecedented scale: nearly 68% of municipalities have only one list submitted, representing more than two-thirds of all communes. This phenomenon does not reflect political consensus, but rather a contraction of the electoral offer. It is directly linked to changes in the legal framework governing municipal elections, notably the generalization of gender-balanced party lists and the removal of the possibility for voters to mix or modify ballots. While this evolution responds to a legitimate objective of gender parity, it produces differentiated effects depending on the territory. In many rural municipalities, sociological and demographic constraints make it more difficult to form complete and gender-balanced lists, mechanically limiting the emergence of competing electoral offers. The absence of alternatives, combined with the impossibility for voters to amend lists, significantly reduces the relevance of the electoral process.Participation data confirms this trend. The first round of the 2026 municipal elections recorded high abstention, estimated at around 42% to 44%, a level significantly higher than that observed in the 2014 municipal elections—the last reference point under normal conditions—when turnout reached approximately 63.5% (i.e., about 36.5% abstention). The gap is substantial and cannot be explained solely by cyclical factors. Opinion surveys highlight a sense of low stakes and electoral resignation in municipalities where the political offer is either non-existent or locked. Voting thus becomes a formality of confirmation rather than a moment of democratic deliberation, reinforcing a sense of distance—or even rejection—toward politics. In such configurations, the majoritarian system no longer produces a choice; it ratifies the absence of an alternative.In larger municipalities, where electoral competition is effective, the majoritarian logic produces a different type of effect, equally structuring. The two-round list system, combined with a 50% majority bonus in seats for the list that comes first, creates significant amplification effects. A list obtaining around 30% to 35% of the vote can thus be allocated 60% to 70% of the seats on the municipal council, transforming a relative electoral minority into an overwhelming institutional majority.The system requires lists to reach a threshold in order to remain in the second round and allows for mergers between rounds. This framework favors configurations with three or four competing lists, in which vote fragmentation enables a minority list to secure a large majority of seats. It also encourages the formation of intermediate alliances, often constructed hastily between the two rounds, without thorough programmatic negotiation. The objective is not to build lasting political coherence, but to maximize the chances of obtaining the majority bonus.These dynamics can be observed concretely in recent local configurations. In Toulouse, for example, alliances are not structured around stable ideological convergence but rather around a bloc-against-bloc logic, with rapprochements between left-wing parties with otherwise distinct orientations, aimed at challenging the incumbent mayor Jean-Luc Moudenc. In such configurations, the argument of a “republican front” or a “barrier” loses its relevance: alliances are no longer formed to block an extreme force, but to structure competition between equivalent blocs.The mechanism produces a paradoxical effect. On the one hand, it encourages rapid and sometimes unnatural electoral aggregation. On the other, it prevents the long-term stabilization of these alliances. Lists formed to cross an electoral threshold are not based on a solid programmatic agreement; once the election has passed, divergences re-emerge, weakening the coherence of the municipal majority. The majoritarian system thus does not foster clarification, but rather the construction of strong institutional majorities built on heterogeneous electoral and political foundations.Thus, empirical observation shows that, even at the local level, the majoritarian system tends either to produce an absence of genuine competition or to generate overrepresented majorities built on minority electoral bases. In both cases, the link between political representation and the effective expression of collective preferences appears weakened.

II. Structural effects of the majoritarian system in a tripolar framework

1. Artificial pre-electoral alliances

In a two-round majoritarian system, access to the second round and ultimately to victory depends on the ability to cross decisive electoral thresholds. This structural constraint profoundly alters the behavior of political actors. It does not primarily encourage them to build coherent projects, but rather to maximize their chances of accessing the majority bonus.In a bipolar context, this logic could still produce relatively stable aggregations: political forces converged toward two sufficiently broad groupings capable of integrating diverse tendencies. In a tripolar system, this aggregative capacity disappears. No bloc can durably absorb the others, and alliances necessarily become partial, unstable, and often defensive.The case of Paris in 2026 provides a particularly illuminating example of this dynamic. At the end of the first round, several configurations involving three or four competing lists emerge across the city’s districts, revealing an advanced fragmentation of the political offer. In this context, negotiations between the two rounds take on a decisive dimension. On the right, the merger between the list led by Rachida Dati and that of Pierre-Yves Bournazel, despite their competition in the first round, occurs within an explicitly strategic logic aimed at combining electoral forces rather than formalizing a shared project. This alliance, announced late and under the constraint of the balance of power resulting from the first round, illustrates the opportunistic nature of such rapprochements. At the same time, the attempt led by Sarah Knafo to build a rapprochement with other components of the right and the far right fails to materialize. This episode is particularly revealing: it shows that the logic of alliance, although structurally encouraged by the electoral system, is not sufficient to produce effective political convergence. Electoral calculations do not necessarily lead to agreements, and fragmentation can persist despite institutional incentives to form alliances.On the left, the situation is equally revealing. Programmatic divergences between the socialist list and that of La France Insoumise prevent the conclusion of an agreement, leading to a dispersion of forces in the second round, each prioritizing its own strategy rather than a negotiated coalition. This inability to stabilize an alliance, despite shared electoral constraints, highlights the difficulty of transforming circumstantial rapprochements into durable political agreements.This logic produces a distortion effect. The unity displayed before the election does not correspond to a real political unity. It constitutes a temporary electoral construction, intended to cross a threshold rather than to govern durably. The majoritarian system thus encourages the production of a façade coherence, the fragility of which becomes apparent as soon as the electoral constraint disappears.

2. Weakening of party coherence and discipline

Party discipline is, in principle, grounded in prior political coherence. A party is disciplined when its members share a sufficiently clear line to durably guide their action. When such coherence is lacking, discipline can only be constrained, unstable, and intermittent.This fragility quickly becomes apparent in parliamentary functioning, as illustrated by the left-wing coalition formed in 2022 under the banner of the New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES). Established as an electoral alliance aimed at maximizing the number of seats, it did not result in the formation of a unified parliamentary group and gradually disintegrated in its internal functioning. This disintegration has been reflected in increasingly conflictual public positions among its components. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has repeatedly attacked his partners, notably accusing social-democratic parties of betraying the alliance and engaging in a logic of accommodation with the central bloc. These statements, formulated in a polemical and accusatory tone, have contributed to hardening lines of division and making any durable coordination increasingly unlikely.In response, Raphaël Glucksmann adopted an explicitly breakaway position, going well beyond a mere strategic disagreement. He publicly likened Jean-Luc Mélenchon to “a left-wing Jean-Marie Le Pen,” denouncing what he considers a drift toward forms of radicality incompatible with the exercise of power. This characterization marks a qualitative threshold in internal conflict: it no longer reflects divergence within a coalition, but a disqualification of the leadership and political line carried by La France Insoumise.The position of the Socialist Party illustrates this structural instability. Under the leadership of Olivier Faure, the party refuses any structured national alliance with La France Insoumise, while maintaining the possibility of local agreements. This ambivalent line reflects the impossibility of stabilizing a coalition at the national level, despite the persistence of occasional electoral aggregation dynamics. It reveals a growing gap between the requirements of the electoral system, which incentivizes unity, and political realities, which render such unity unstable or even impracticable.These converging elements show that NUPES does not constitute an integrated political entity, but rather an electoral coalition whose unity does not withstand either parliamentary work or strategic confrontation among its components.The central bloc exhibits a comparable dynamic. The presidential coalition, structured around Renaissance, the MoDem, and Horizons, has seen its internal tensions intensify as the majoritarian constraint has weakened. These tensions do not merely concern peripheral divergences; they now cut through what once formed the very core of the presidential majority, including in its parliamentary expression.This fragilization is particularly visible during the examination of budgetary laws, which traditionally constitute the moment of strongest majority discipline. Under the Fifth Republic, the vote on the budget is in principle a test of cohesion: it directly engages the government’s responsibility and presupposes near-total alignment among the forces supporting it.The repeated use of Article 49, paragraph 3 of the Constitution to pass finance bills and social security financing laws constitutes the clearest indicator. This mechanism, which allows a bill to be adopted without a vote unless a motion of censure is passed, has become an ordinary instrument of government. Its recurrent use reflects not only a search for efficiency; it reveals the inability of the majority to guarantee, through parliamentary discipline alone, the adoption of its own legislation.This situation can be explained by the multiplication of divergent positions within the majority itself. Several deputies from Renaissance, the MoDem, or Horizons have expressed reservations, abstentions, or opposition on budgetary provisions, particularly on fiscal, social, or territorial issues. These forms of distancing, once marginal, are becoming normalized and are weakening the executive’s capacity for coordination.This phenomenon is reinforced by the strategies of autonomization pursued by key figures within the central bloc. Édouard Philippe is developing a distinct line in view of 2027, while Gabriel Attal has also introduced shifts and taken positions of distance. In this context, parliamentary discipline ceases to be the extension of political coherence; it becomes an uncertain constraint, dependent on continuous negotiation and unstable balances.A decisive threshold is reached here: when parliamentary discipline can no longer be guaranteed within the very majority supporting the executive, the central mechanism of rationalized parliamentarianism is weakened. The government can no longer rely on a stable political majority; it must resort to institutional instruments to compensate for the absence of cohesion.In such configurations, party discipline becomes intermittent, dependent on immediate stakes, and often imposed through institutional mechanisms rather than grounded in genuine political adherence. Parliamentary functioning is consequently affected: majorities become uncertain, positions fluctuate, and the readability of public action is reduced.The case of Jean-Yves Le Drian provides a first illustration at this level. Coming from a culture of government and historically rooted in social-democratic left traditions, he has formulated explicit criticisms regarding the lack of clarity and coherence of certain recent electoral alliances. This distancing, expressed outside immediate partisan logics, constitutes an internal validation of the diagnosis: the configurations produced by the system no longer succeed in generating coherent and intelligible political alignments.At another level, the case of Émilie Dalix highlights a tension of a different nature. Confronted with an alliance configuration she identifies as resulting from the constraints of the electoral system, she nevertheless chooses to withdraw, deeming it politically unacceptable. This type of decision reveals a key point of friction: when the system’s strategic rationality comes into conflict with individual convictions, the resulting arbitration can only be conflictual.These two examples, distinct yet convergent, make it possible to observe the same phenomenon at two complementary levels. On the one hand, internal criticism expressed by experienced actors calls into question the coherence of alliances produced by the system. On the other, individual decisions reflect the difficulty of accepting these configurations, even when they appear strategically rational. Both reveal that the weakening of party coherence does not merely result in the disorganization of political structures: it now affects the very capacity of political actors to recognize themselves in the configurations they contribute to producing.

3. Permanent anticipation and degradation of political debate

In a majoritarian system, political actors operate within a permanent electoral horizon. The need to build or preserve future alliances directly influences present positions. Each political force must accommodate potential partners, avoid irreversible ruptures, and maintain room for maneuver in view of upcoming elections. This constraint produces a specific effect on political debate: oppositions cannot be fully assumed when they risk compromising future alliances, while differentiations must remain sufficiently marked to preserve a distinct political identity.This structural constraint is concretely reflected in the positions adopted by political actors. The positions taken by Bruno Retailleau provide a particularly significant illustration. On the one hand, he reaffirms his refusal of a structured alliance with the National Rally, due to fundamental divergences, particularly on economic and institutional grounds. At the same time, he designates La France Insoumise as the main adversary, thereby structuring the political cleavage around this opposition and explicitly calling, in certain recent electoral sequences, to oppose it. This dual posture does not reflect individual inconsistency, but a systemic constraint: it involves both asserting a clear political line and preserving a capacity for recomposition, without locking into an alliance that would close off other options.The episode of the 2026 municipal elections in Nice is revealing in this regard. In the second round, opposed to Éric Ciotti, allied with the National Rally, the outgoing mayor Christian Estrosi, associated with the central bloc, did not receive Bruno Retailleau’s support, who refused to give a clear voting instruction and instead referred voters to their “conscience.” This position, combined with explicit criticism of the incumbent mayor, reveals an inability to structure a coherent alliance, even in the face of a relatively simplified configuration. The majoritarian electoral system thus imposes the designation of priority oppositions, without enabling the construction of coherent and durable coalitions.Conversely, the position of Raphaël Glucksmann reveals a symmetrical tension. Although his positions on structuring issues—particularly European or international—objectively align him with positions compatible with the central bloc, he maintains his affiliation with the Socialist Party and the left, even in a context of open conflict with La France Insoumise. Despite particularly harsh criticism directed at the latter, he does not cross the threshold of political recomposition and continues to operate within a constrained alliance framework.These two configurations illustrate the same phenomenon: the majoritarian electoral system compels actors to maintain unstable intermediate positions, combining identity assertion with the preservation of strategic flexibility.However, the configurations described above do not merely reveal tensions specific to political actors; they also reveal their effects on the structuring of political debate itself. The positions adopted by figures such as Bruno Retailleau or Raphaël Glucksmann, already analyzed, do not merely reflect individual trade-offs: they contribute to structuring the debate around anticipation, positioning, and the management of electoral constraints.This imbalance directly affects the quality of deliberation. Parliamentary debate tends, in part, to become performative: it aims as much to produce immediate political effects as to prepare future electoral configurations. The positions adopted do not always reflect stabilized political lines, but calculations of opportunity. This transformation of debate into a logic of positioning opens a specific space in which certain strategies become particularly effective.In this context, conflict becomes a political resource. The absence of an intermediate space between opposition and participation in power encourages certain forces to adopt strategies of maximal confrontation in order to exist within the public debate. This phenomenon, often referred to as “bordélisation,” can be analyzed as a systemic effect: when access to power is structurally constrained, political visibility is achieved through the intensification of conflict.The strategy of La France Insoumise provides a particularly clear illustration. Several observers and political actors describe a deliberate line of conflictuality, aimed at saturating the media and parliamentary space through a continuous multiplication of polarizing interventions, procedural incidents, and divisive positions. It is concretely manifested in the National Assembly through sequences of obstruction, interventions designed for media diffusion, and deliberately polarizing rhetoric. It is also accompanied by an offensive electoral strategy, consisting in positioning itself as the central pole of opposition, including against other left-wing forces, with a view to national electoral deadlines.This conflict does not stem solely from a contingent tactical choice; it is embedded in a broader logic linked to the constraints of the system. In a context where access to power appears structurally uncertain, the construction of an electoral balance of power relies on the consolidation of a highly mobilized core electorate. Conflict then becomes an instrument of crystallization: it makes it possible to structure a clear cleavage, to secure a militant base, and to prepare for a presidential election in which first-round logic takes precedence over coalition-building.

III. Normative transformation: proportional representation as a regulatory mechanism

1. An architecture designed for a bipolar system

The institutional architecture of the Fifth Republic rests on an implicit assumption: the structuring of the political system around two blocs capable of alternating in the exercise of power. The two-round majoritarian system constitutes the core of this arrangement. It organizes electoral competition according to a logic of progressive reduction, aimed at driving political forces to converge toward two dominant poles in the second round.This mechanism assumes that political forces possess sufficient aggregative capacity to come together durably before the election. It is based on the idea that alliances formed between the two rounds extend real political proximities and make it possible to transform a relative majority into a coherent political majority.This logic effectively functioned as long as the party system was structured around two dominant groupings. It made it possible to produce what institutional practice has referred to as the “majoritarian fact”: a stable parliamentary majority, derived from the vote, capable of durably supporting governmental action.

2. A society now marked by fragmentation

The empirical elements analyzed above show that this condition is no longer fulfilled. The French political system has come to be structured around three blocs of comparable strength. Among them, only the central bloc possesses, in theory, a capacity for aggregation, due to its intermediate position and its partial compatibility with the two others. However, this capacity remains partial and unstable: it allows for occasional convergences but is insufficient to produce a durable majority.This transformation is visible at all levels of the system. At the national level, it is reflected in the emergence of relative majorities and in the inability of electoral alliances to produce lasting political coherence, as illustrated both by the disintegration of NUPES and by the coordination difficulties of the presidential majority. At the local level, it manifests itself in the multiplication of configurations involving three or four competing forces, as well as in alliances formed under constraint between the two rounds, the instability of which has been clearly observed in major cities.This type of configuration is not unprecedented. In proportional systems, the absence of a natural majority leads to the formation of broad, sometimes heterogeneous coalitions, whose composition varies according to parliamentary balances. The German example provides a clear illustration: government coalitions—whether the “grand coalition” (CDU/CSU–SPD), the “traffic light” coalition (SPD–Greens–FDP), the “Jamaica” coalition (CDU/CSU–Greens–FDP), or the “kiwi” coalition (CDU/CSU–Greens)—are formed based on the balance of power within the Bundestag and directly reflect the fragmented structure of the electorate, without preventing the exercise of power, at least up to a certain threshold of internal tension.In this context, the logic of the second round no longer produces a clarification of the French political landscape, but rather a relative selection among competing blocs, none of which is able to prevail durably. The reduction to two electoral options no longer corresponds to the real structure of the electorate, making the formation of coherent majorities under the majoritarian system uncertain.

3. An institutional majority without a social majority

This gap does not merely make the formation of majorities uncertain: the majoritarian system continues to generate institutional majorities that no longer correspond to a clearly identifiable social majority. This discrepancy is reinforced by the very mechanisms of the electoral system, in particular the majority bonus, which allows the list that comes first to benefit from significant overrepresentation in seats, even when it gathers only a relative minority of the vote.The mechanism is now identifiable. At the time of the election, political forces are incentivized to aggregate tactically in order to cross decisive electoral thresholds. These aggregations make it possible to produce a majority of seats, but they rest on heterogeneous political balances. In highly fragmented configurations, this logic leads to situations in which the institutional majority is based on a minority electoral foundation. In Martigues, in the second round of the 2026 municipal elections, four lists remained in contention, and the leading list prevailed with 35.71% of the vote. More broadly, second-round results show the frequency of configurations involving three or four lists, as well as the existence of more extreme situations: 17 five-list contests were recorded in 2026, meaning elections in which five lists remained in contention until the final vote. In such cases, the dispersion of votes, combined with the majority bonus, allows a formation that is a minority in votes to become a majority in seats.Out of approximately 1,500 municipalities concerned by a second round, the average number of lists largely exceeds a simple two-way contest, reflecting a structural fragmentation of the political offer. Given the demographic weight of these municipalities, these configurations involve several million voters. An estimate based on the structure of the electorate and the average size of municipalities in this type of configuration places this figure between 8 and 10 million voters. The phenomenon therefore affects a significant share of the electorate.Once the election is over, the absence of prior coherence leads to disaggregation in institutional functioning, manifested through internal divisions, the weakening of party discipline, and increased reliance on mechanisms of constraint.The dissociation between institutional majority and sociopolitical reality reactivates a classic problem in political theory: that of the correspondence between majority decision and collective will. This gap is not merely an imperfection of the system; it directly affects the legitimacy of majority decision-making. When mechanisms of representation artificially amplify certain positions while minimizing others, the majority ceases to appear as the expression of a real equilibrium and tends instead to be perceived as an institutional construction.

IV. Proportional representation as a regulatory mechanism: a paradigm shift

1. Clarifying the balance of power

If the misalignment observed results from an inadequacy between electoral mechanisms and the structure of the political body, then the response cannot be merely conjunctural. The central question becomes that of readjusting the mechanisms of representation themselves. It is no longer a matter of artificially reconstructing majorities from a system designed for a different state of the political landscape, but of institutionally organizing a plurality that is now firmly established.In this context, proportional representation should not be understood as a mere alternative voting system, but as a mechanism for regulating political balances. Where the majoritarian system tends to artificially amplify certain positions and diminish others, proportional representation aims to more faithfully reflect the balance of power resulting from the vote. In doing so, it puts an end to the production of institutional majorities without a sociopolitical equivalent, by preventing a minority electoral base from mechanically translating into a majority of seats.This transformation alters the very nature of representation. In a proportional system, parliamentary configurations no longer result from an artificial reduction of pluralism, but from its direct expression. The political balances observed within assemblies thus correspond more closely to those of the electorate, thereby reducing the gap between institutional majority and sociopolitical majority highlighted earlier.The system no longer manufactures a majority: it makes an equilibrium visible and allows the fragmentation of the political body to be integrated into institutional functioning, rather than circumvented, as illustrated by European proportional systems. Thus, proportional representation does not eliminate political plurality; it organizes its expression. It does not aim to produce an artificial majority, but to render governable a political configuration that is no longer so within the framework of the majoritarian system.

2. The shift in the moment of compromise

The introduction of a proportional system modifies not only the distribution of political forces, but also the conditions under which compromise is constructed. In a majoritarian system, this compromise occurs upstream of the election. Political forces are incentivized to aggregate before the vote in order to cross the thresholds required to access the second round and ultimately achieve victory. These alliances, formed under electoral constraint, often rest on fragile balances and implicit agreements. As recent municipal configurations and the NUPES alliance have shown, they make it possible to cross an electoral threshold without producing the conditions for durable political coherence. They may even become counterproductive: by introducing ambiguity regarding the actual positions of the actors, they expose political formations to a risk of electoral rejection.In a proportional system, this logic is reversed. The electoral process no longer compels prior aggregation; it allows the autonomous expression of different political forces. Pre-electoral alliances thus lose their strategic function, as the number of seats directly reflects the sociopolitical balance. Compromise then takes place downstream, based on the balance of power effectively produced by the vote. Negotiations between political formations no longer aim to maximize an uncertain electoral outcome, but to construct a governing agreement based on clarified positions.This difference is decisive. When it is constructed before the election, compromise tends to mask divergences and to produce non-viable alliances. The evolution of NUPES provided an initial illustration; more recent positions confirm its structural nature. Olivier Faure thus asserts that Jean-Luc Mélenchon has become “a burden on the left” and constitutes an obstacle to any electoral victory, while at the same time validating local alliances with this same partner. This coexistence of explicit political disqualification and continued electoral cooperation reflects a contradiction that the system does not resolve, but rather organizes.When it occurs after the election, compromise instead rests on the explicit recognition of divergences. The resulting coalition agreements take the form of formalized political contracts, negotiated publicly and capable of being evaluated over time. The German example provides a clear illustration. Coalition agreements concluded after federal elections precisely detail the government’s orientations, programmatic priorities, and implementation modalities. This process, often lengthy and sometimes laborious, produces in return greater clarity in public action and increased accountability of political actors.Thus, proportional representation does not eliminate compromise; it transforms its temporality and nature. It shifts the system’s point of equilibrium: from constrained electoral aggregation to explicit political negotiation. Compromise ceases to be an instrument for crossing electoral thresholds and becomes a condition of governance. This shift helps reduce the gap between electoral alliances and governing majorities, by grounding the latter in real agreements rather than in circumstantial convergences. This displacement of the moment of compromise does not merely alter the formation of majorities; it also transforms the conditions of their coherence.

3. Restoring political coherence

The introduction of a proportional system also modifies the conditions of political coherence. In a majoritarian system, the logic of pre-electoral aggregation produces political heterogeneity that directly affects the functioning of parliamentary groups. This heterogeneity weakens party discipline and makes the definition of a common political line unstable. The examination of the state budget provides a particularly clear illustration. In 2026, after more than 350 hours of parliamentary debate, the government was unable to secure a majority to adopt the finance bill. It had to resort three times to Article 49, paragraph 3 of the Constitution—on revenues, expenditures, and then on the entire text—leading to its adoption without a conventional parliamentary vote. This sequence does not reflect a contingent difficulty, but the inability of the majority to guarantee, through parliamentary discipline alone, the adoption of the central text of public action. It also reveals a symmetrical inability of the opposition to form an alternative majority: despite the tabling of motions of censure, no coalition was able to gather the votes required to bring down the government. The system thus produces a double impotence: governing without constraint becomes impossible, yet sanctioning the executive becomes equally so.In a proportional system, the logic is reversed. Political forces present themselves to voters on distinct programmatic bases, without the constraint of prior aggregation. Coherence no longer results from an implicit compromise imposed by the electoral system, but from an explicit agreement constructed after the election. As the number of seats directly reflects the sociopolitical balance, their strategic utility disappears.This transformation directly modifies electoral behavior. In a two-round system, the progressive reduction of choice—often summarized by the formula “in the first round, one chooses; in the second, one eliminates”—gives a clear function to alliances: they serve to organize this elimination. When this logic disappears, as in a proportional system, any alliance concluded before the vote no longer fulfills any institutional function. It does not increase the number of seats obtained and does not improve the capacity to govern.It does, however, produce an observable effect: by aggregating before the vote forces with distinct positions, it prevents voters from clearly identifying the political options on offer. Alliances formed between the two rounds, particularly in municipal elections, make it possible to cross an electoral threshold but disintegrate immediately after the election due to the lack of political coherence. Transposed into a proportional system, such a logic of pre-electoral aggregation would not merely be unnecessary; it would distort the translation of votes into seats by obscuring the real balance of power between political formations.This blockage does not stem from an inability of actors to cooperate, but from the absence of a framework capable of organizing such cooperation in a stable manner.Within the framework described, governing majorities then rest on coalitions negotiated on the basis of clarified positions. The resulting agreements precisely define political orientations, priorities for action, and the modalities of cooperation between partners. This formalization has a direct effect on discipline: it no longer rests on prior electoral constraint, but on adherence to a coalition agreement whose terms are known and assumed. It thus introduces a dual effect of clarification and responsibility: the commitments made between partners are made explicit and public, allowing voters to identify the compromises actually concluded and to assess their implementation over time.This structuring produces a broader effect: the stability of the majority no longer rests on an artificial reduction of pluralism, but on the explicit organization of cooperation between distinct political forces. It thus transforms plurality into an operational framework for public action. Proportional representation therefore does not weaken political coherence; it transforms its foundation. It replaces a façade unity, produced by electoral constraint, with a constructed coherence arising from an explicit agreement between partners. This shift does not merely alter the form of majorities: it redefines the conditions of their formation and functioning. Compromises, made visible and assumed, become identifiable and assessable, thereby simultaneously strengthening the readability of public action and the political accountability of actors.

4. Changing political incentives

Beyond the formation of majorities and the functioning of institutions, the electoral system has a direct effect on the behavior of political actors. It does not merely organize representation; it structures strategies, positions, and forms of conflict.In a majoritarian system, incentives are oriented toward maximizing the chances of reaching the second round and achieving victory. Political formations are led to maintain intermediate positions, combining identity assertion with the preservation of room for maneuver in view of future alliances. This configuration favors strategies of ambiguity: political lines remain partially blurred, oppositions are modulated according to prospects of recomposition, and positions may vary depending on electoral sequences.The examples previously analyzed provide converging illustrations. The positions of Bruno Retailleau, oscillating between refusal of a structured alliance with the National Rally and the designation of La France Insoumise as the main adversary, or those of Raphaël Glucksmann, maintaining his position within a constrained alliance space despite particularly harsh criticism, reflect this necessity to preserve margins for recomposition. In a different way, the strategy of conflict developed by La France Insoumise follows the same logic: in a context where access to power is uncertain, political visibility and the consolidation of an electoral base become primary objectives, which encourages the intensification of conflict.This dynamic produces a directly observable effect in recent electoral configurations: it does not merely structure opposition between blocs, it also disorganizes alliances themselves. In Saint-Denis, during the 2026 municipal elections, political figures engaged in alliance strategies publicly denounced agreements as “incoherent” or “illegible,” while still participating in them. Similarly, at the national level, Olivier Faure describes Jean-Luc Mélenchon as “a burden on the left” while maintaining local alliances with La France Insoumise. These situations reveal a structural contradiction: explicit political disqualification coexists with electoral cooperation. The system thus compels actors to cooperate with those they publicly delegitimize, rendering any durable political construction unstable.These dynamics frequently take the form of public denunciations. They are not only intended to differentiate political lines, but also to disqualify competing actors in order to structure an electorate. They produce a cumulative effect: by hardening lines of division, they make any subsequent recomposition more costly. The majoritarian system thus tends to generate discursive strategies that, while rational within the logic of the first round, compromise the formation of coherent coalitions after the election.In a proportional system, these incentives are profoundly modified. Political formations are no longer compelled to adjust their positions according to hypothetical pre-electoral alliances. They can present themselves to voters on distinct programmatic bases, without the need to maintain strategic ambiguity. Clarity then becomes a competitive advantage: it allows for the identification of a position, the structuring of an electorate, and subsequent negotiation based on an explicit mandate.A new cost then emerges for strategies of ambiguity. When a political formation adopts contradictory positions or maintains ambiguity regarding its orientations, this discrepancy becomes directly visible in the electoral offer and may be sanctioned by voters. Conversely, programmatic coherence and clarity of positions become political resources, insofar as they allow for the stabilization of an electoral base and the strengthening of credibility in coalition negotiations.It also produces an effect on the structuring of the political field. In a proportional system, access to power depends on the ability to participate in a majority coalition. This capacity presupposes a minimum level of compatibility with other political forces. Formations that position themselves outside any space of compromise are, de facto, excluded from the formation of majorities.European proportional systems provide explicit illustrations. In Germany, the case of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) offers a particularly clear example: although it may reach high levels—occasionally exceeding 30% in certain eastern Länder, notably in Thuringia—and come first in these local configurations, it remains excluded from any governing coalition, as all other parties refuse to govern with it. The system does not remove this force from the political debate; it fully recognizes its parliamentary representation. Its exclusion from power does not result from a prior transformation requirement, but from an explicit and shared coalition refusal, which places it de facto outside the field of possible majorities. The constraint is therefore not electoral, but coalition-based.Thus, proportional representation does not merely modify institutional balances; it transforms the incentives that shape the actions of political actors. Where the majoritarian system tends to reward ambiguity and strategic conflict, the proportional system values clarity of positions and the capacity to build explicit compromises. The shift is not only institutional; it is behavioral.

VI. Integration within the framework of the Fifth Republic

1. Maintaining institutional robustness

If proportional representation entails a paradigm shift in the functioning of the political system, this transformation does not imply a questioning of its institutional architecture. It affects neither the nature of the regime nor the structure of executive powers. The President of the Republic retains all of his prerogatives, notably in matters of defense, foreign policy, and crisis management, while the government remains accountable to Parliament under the conditions provided by the Constitution.The mechanisms that ensure the robustness of the regime remain fully operational. The President notably retains the possibility of invoking Article 16 in the event of a major crisis or dissolving the National Assembly, thereby guaranteeing the continuity of the State. Likewise, the instruments of rationalized parliamentarianism, such as Article 49, paragraph 3, remain available, even if their use is likely to evolve in a context of more structured political negotiation.The experience of European proportional systems further shows that governmental stability can be framed by specific institutional mechanisms. In Germany, the implementation of the “constructive vote of no confidence”—the functional equivalent of a motion of censure—is conditional upon the designation of an alternative majority capable of governing. This principle of “constructive censure” prevents the formation of negative majorities and ensures that any challenge to the government is accompanied by an immediately operational replacement.At the same time, access to parliamentary representation may be conditioned on obtaining a minimum threshold of votes. In Germany, this threshold is set at 5% at the national level, which limits the dispersion of seats among marginal formations and contributes to structuring the political landscape around a limited number of significant actors. This mechanism introduces an upstream regulation of representation, complementary to the stabilization mechanisms linked to coalition formation.This principle of regulation does not imply an arbitrary reduction of political plurality. On the contrary, it is accompanied by a more faithful representation of sociopolitical sensitivities. Each significant current is represented in proportion to its actual weight within the electorate, making it possible to more accurately reflect the diversity of collective preferences. Where the majoritarian system tends to artificially simplify this diversity, proportional representation organizes its expression without distorting it.This institutional stability distinguishes the proposed reform from a change of regime. It is not a matter of replacing the Fifth Republic with a parliamentary model, but of adapting the functioning of the representative system to the evolution of the political body. The introduction of proportional representation thus takes place within the existing constitutional framework, without altering its fundamental balances.The example of other European democracies with strong executive institutions shows that proportional representation is not incompatible with decision-making capacity. The robustness of a regime does not rely solely on the electoral system, but on the articulation between its different institutional components. In France, this articulation remains unchanged: the executive center of gravity remains stable, even if the conditions for forming parliamentary majorities evolve.Thus, proportional representation does not weaken the Fifth Republic; it modifies its functioning without calling into question its structuring principles. It preserves the instruments of decision and the continuity of the State, while adapting the representative system to the fragmentation of the political body.

2. Transformation of ordinary functioning

If the introduction of proportional representation does not alter the institutional architecture of the Fifth Republic, it does, however, transform the rhythm and temporality of its ordinary functioning. The center of gravity of the system does not shift at the level of institutions, but in the way decision-making, deliberation, and implementation are articulated.In a majoritarian system, the political sequence is highly asymmetrical. The bulk of the structuring work takes place upstream of the election, through the formation of electoral alliances aimed at securing access to power. Once this stage has been completed, institutional functioning tends to become vertical: the majority possesses the means to impose its decisions, and Parliament primarily operates within a logic of validation.Recent sequences provide a clear illustration. The examination of the state budget in 2026 revealed a dissociation between the capacity to decide and the capacity to deliberate. The repeated use of Article 49, paragraph 3 made it possible to adopt the text, but by bypassing the ordinary parliamentary process. At the same time, the absence of an alternative majority prevented any political reconfiguration. The system functions, but under constraint, at the cost of a weakening of the deliberative sequence.In a proportional system, this asymmetry disappears. Political work is no longer concentrated in an initial phase followed by vertical execution, but is instead embedded in a continuous dynamic. Public decision-making results from a process of gradual adjustment, in which deliberation and implementation are closely articulated.This shift produces a concrete effect: Parliament ceases to be a place of validation or blockage and becomes a space for the effective production of decision. The issue is no longer to overcome a temporary disagreement, but to organize, over time, the conditions of public action.This transformation does not imply the disappearance of the formal structures of law-making. The distinction between government bills, introduced by the executive, and private members’ bills, initiated by Parliament, remains fully operative, as does the hierarchy of responsibilities between the executive and Parliament. What evolves is not the architecture of the legislative process, but the conditions of its functioning. Where the majoritarian system allows the executive to rely on a disciplined majority to impose its texts, the proportional system presupposes closer work of preparation upstream and adjustment during deliberation, without calling into question the primacy of government initiative on structuring legislation.The experience of European proportional systems provides clear illustrations. In Germany, while the broad orientations are set in coalition agreements, their operational translation requires continuous parliamentary work, allowing decisions to be adjusted according to political constraints and evolving circumstances.Thus, proportional representation does not merely transform the conditions of compromise; it alters the temporal structure of public action. It replaces a logic of concentrated decision-making with a logic of continuous regulation. This shift does not imply a slowdown of action, but a transformation of its modalities: the capacity to act does not disappear, it is redistributed differently across institutional time.

3. Adaptation without disruption

The introduction of proportional representation does not constitute a change of regime and does not alter the fundamental balance of the Fifth Republic. The structuring principles—a strong executive, government accountability before Parliament, and the capacity for decision-making in times of crisis—remain unchanged.The transformation underway reflects an evolution in functioning, not an institutional refoundation. It consists in an adjustment of the mechanisms of representation to the contemporary conditions of the political system, without calling into question the existing constitutional foundations. It thus falls within a logic of internal adaptation: not a rupture, but a gradual readjustment between institutions and the configuration of the political body, made possible by the electoral system as a variable of functioning.Thus, proportional representation does not introduce a new regime; it enables the existing regime to regain conditions of functioning consistent with political reality. It does not substitute one model for another, but restores an alignment between mechanisms of representation and the effective structure of the electorate. This reform is conservative in its institutions and transformative in its functioning.

VII. Overall conclusion

The bipolar model that long structured the functioning of French institutions no longer corresponds to the reality of the political body. The stabilization of a tripolar landscape, characterized by the existence of blocs of comparable strength that are difficult to aggregate, has profoundly altered the conditions under which power is exercised. In this context, the majoritarian system no longer produces the stabilizing effect for which it was designed. It tends instead to generate a reverse sequence: artificial electoral aggregation at the time of the vote, followed by disaggregation in the functioning of institutions.This misalignment does not stem from a conjunctural drift, but from a structural transformation. Electoral mechanisms continue to operate according to a bipolar logic of reduction, while society has durably organized itself around several irreducible blocs. The result is a growing gap between institutional representation and sociopolitical reality, manifested both in the instability of parliamentary functioning and in the recurring contestation of public decisions.Under these conditions, the central issue is no longer the artificial reconstruction of a majoritarian fact, but the institutional organization of a durable plurality. Proportional representation thus appears not as one option among others, but as a regulatory mechanism adapted to this transformation. It makes it possible to faithfully reflect balances of power, to shift the moment of compromise, to restore the coherence of majorities, and to transform the political incentives that structure the behavior of actors.This transformation is not limited to the functioning of institutions; it entails a deeper recomposition of democratic legitimacy. By ensuring a faithful representation of sociopolitical sensitivities at all levels, it opens the possibility of organizing the political system around a continuity of representation, from the local to the national scale. Proportional representation is not merely an electoral reform: it outlines the conditions for a democratic legitimacy deployed according to a fractal logic, in which each level of decision reproduces, at its own scale, the principles of representation and deliberation that underpin the system as a whole.Thus, proportional representation does not introduce instability; it renders governable an instability that already exists. It does not weaken representative democracy; it restores the effective conditions of its functioning in a context of durable plurality.

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Europe’s Self-Scuttling

April 14, 2026

What is unfolding today in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb goes far beyond a regional crisis: it is a demonstration of power that Europe is witnessing without being able to intervene, influence, or even truly weigh in. Two vital chokepoints of global trade are being disrupted simultaneously, and this simple configuration is enough to expose a reality that has been avoided for far too long: the European Union does not control the material conditions of its own prosperity.For the world in which this model made sense — that of a relatively stable, predictable, and open globalization — no longer exists. Flows have become levers of power, dependencies instruments of constraint, and strategic passages zones of confrontation. In this environment, a union that functions as a market without conceiving itself as a power condemns itself to undergo the decisions of others.This observation is neither surprising nor accidental. It is part of a perfectly coherent trajectory, that of a European project which has methodically organized internal competition while neglecting the conditions of its power. By persistently privileging openness, cost discipline, and the optimization of value chains, Europe has gradually substituted for the control of its dependencies a capacity to adapt to them — in other words, it has traded sovereignty for resilience — a resilience increasingly limited by the transformation of flows into instruments of constraint and by the assertion of the power appetites of the United States, Russia, and China.Now, a political entity that controls neither its supplies, nor its trade routes, nor its productive base does not possess real autonomy; it depends on external decisions that, sooner or later, impose themselves upon it. The current situation provides an unequivocal illustration: foreign powers are in a position to disrupt a vital axis of global trade without Europe being able to oppose anything other than a delayed and marginal reaction.This is a strategic failure.The core of the problem is known. By elevating internal competitiveness to a structuring principle, the Union has set its own members in competition, fostering lasting wage divergences, a fragmentation of value chains, and an unbalanced productive specialization. What has been presented as economic optimization has, in reality, translated into a partial deindustrialization and an increased dependence on external actors.Even Germany, though at the center of this equilibrium and the main beneficiary of this architecture, does not escape this logic. Its export model rests on the fluidity of exchanges toward Asia, particularly China; as soon as these flows are disrupted, its outlets, its costs, and ultimately its industrial apparatus are weakened. Dependence is therefore not a peripheral issue: it is constitutive of the system.One may continue to ignore it. One can no longer deny it.The problem is therefore not cyclical. It is structural. And as long as it is not treated as such, each crisis acts as an additional revealer of a fundamental contradiction: Europe claims to exist as an actor in a world of power, while organizing itself as a space of competition.This contradiction is not indefinitely sustainable.There are, in reality, only two outcomes. Either Europe accepts to transform itself — by reintroducing convergence, rebuilding an industrial base, securing its supplies, and equipping itself with an autonomous capacity for action — or it persists in a model whose successive crises reveal its limits, until the point where these cease to be manageable.At this stage, this is no longer a technical debate nor a marginal adjustment. It is a fundamental political choice, on which depends Europe’s capacity to remain an actor of its own destiny.Failing that, others will decide for it.Jean-Philippe Battédou

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Europe Facing the American Drift: Will We Finally Move Beyond Denial?

April 7, 2026

Things must be called by their proper name. What is currently being projected is not a simple escalation, but the explicit integration of practices that fall within the scope of war crimes, embedded in an assumed strategic logic. The destruction of civilian infrastructure — energy, healthcare, academic — is not a marginal or accidental deviation. It is part of a method. And this method is incompatible with Europe, not on moral grounds, but because it directly contradicts the legal, political, and historical foundations that structure its order.Europe cannot associate itself with this, not because it would be more virtuous, but because it is historically unable to do so. This refusal is not a posture. It is the product of a constituted political and legal memory, embedded in institutions, codified in law, and internalized by societies. Once civilian populations become strategic targets, there is no longer any room for debate or adjustment. There is a rupture of compatibility. This rupture is not theoretical. It is already unfolding, as the gap between the practices being considered and European constraints becomes impossible to conceal.To this incompatibility is added a basic strategic error, abundantly documented in historical precedents. Striking civilian infrastructure does not lead to the collapse of a regime. On the contrary, it produces a consolidation effect. Internal fractures close, dissent fades, and the nation recomposes itself in the face of external aggression. Political weakness becomes a factor of resistance. This is a complete inversion of the intended objective. This mechanism is known, documented, repeated — and yet it continues to be ignored, as if acknowledging it would call the entire strategy into question.Beyond any moral consideration, and despite the human horror that the situation of the two American pilots would represent, their capture by the Iranian regime would have constituted a major political shock in the United States, likely to produce decisive strategic effects. In a system as sensitive as the American one to this type of event, prolonged captivity would have generated internal pressure of exceptional intensity. That pressure would not have been neutral. It would have forced a shift.Two trajectories would then have emerged. The first, the most desirable, would have been an accelerated weakening of the Trump administration, potentially precipitating its exit, with the direct consequence of bringing the United States back within the framework of liberal democracies that respect international law. The second would have been an openly assumed hardening of power to contain internal dissent — in other words, an authoritarian shift made visible, explicit, and impossible to disguise behind institutional appearances. In both cases, the effect would not have been marginal. It would have been profoundly clarifying.Such clarification would have constituted a major strategic tipping point for Europe, putting an end to the growing ambiguity of the transatlantic relationship. What is at stake is no longer a temporary divergence between allies, but the very possibility of a durable alignment. When methods become incompatible, when internal political effects become unstable, and when objectives cease to be shareable, the alliance does not necessarily disappear through explicit political decision. It simply ceases to function in practice.This is no longer a hypothesis. It is already reflected in observable dynamics. Europe is accelerating its military transformation, reactivating the question of deterrence, strengthening its logistical capacities, investing in space and cyber domains, and beginning to rethink its force structure and mobilization capabilities. These developments are neither isolated nor contingent. Europe is not choosing to become a power. It is being compelled to do so by the evolution of its environment. From this point onward, the question is no longer whether the transatlantic relationship is in crisis, but in which scenarios it still remains operational. And the answer is already partial. In some cases, it no longer is.Moving beyond denial therefore becomes both an analytical and political necessity. Hoping for a correction from the American partner remains legitimate, but grounding European security on that single assumption now amounts to strategic blindness. Autonomy and sovereignty are no longer options or long-term projects. They are becoming immediate conditions for coherence and political survival across all domains.Jean-Philippe Battédou

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Putin and Trump: Founding Fathers of a European Power?

6 March 2026

For a long time, Europe believed it could live in a world stabilized by international law, alliances, and economic interdependence. This vision rested on a simple assumption: high-intensity war had disappeared from the European continent, and collective security mechanisms would suffice to contain crises.This assumption is now being put to the test. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought war back to the heart of the continent. At the same time, the repercussions of the war launched against Iran by Israel and the United States in the Strait of Hormuz serve as a stark reminder of how quickly global energy routes can become instruments of power. This war also reveals a political divergence within Europe. Several states have expressed varying degrees of opposition to the military operation. The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, did so explicitly by refusing any Spanish participation in the conflict. France has adopted a critical position: President Emmanuel Macron has questioned the legal legitimacy of the operation and denounced the lack of consultation with European partners. By contrast, other European governments, particularly in Germany and the United Kingdom, remain politically aligned with Washington while calling for the avoidance of regional escalation. This divergence reveals a deeper problem. The economic pressures exerted by the United States against Spain in response to its refusal to participate in the conflict directly raise the question of European solidarity. If a Member State is subjected to external coercion for a sovereign political decision, the European Union is, in principle, bound to mitigate its effects. The paradox thus becomes clear: some European governments may find themselves politically supporting the American position while being legally obliged to offset the consequences of pressure exerted against one of their own partners.In this context, a strategic question emerges with particular acuity: can Europe be drawn into a war it neither decided nor desired? The alliance mechanisms that structure European security make this hypothesis plausible. A regional escalation could lead to strikes against bases or territories linked to NATO, potentially triggering collective defense mechanisms. However, Europe’s strategic architecture extends beyond the Atlantic Alliance. Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union provides for a mutual assistance obligation between Member States in the event of armed aggression. To these multilateral mechanisms must be added numerous bilateral defense agreements and the direct military presence of several European states in the Middle East. France, in particular, is bound by defense agreements with several Gulf monarchies and maintains permanent military facilities in the region, notably in the United Arab Emirates. In a context of regional escalation, these commitments may create direct military obligations independently of the activation of NATO’s Article 5. In concrete terms, the war against Iran is already leading to European military mobilization. The French carrier strike group is currently operating in the eastern Mediterranean, while France’s air presence in the Gulf has been reinforced by the deployment of six additional Rafale fighter jets, bringing the total to twelve. Officially, this posture is defensive: it aims to protect French installations, regional partners, and European nationals. However, the mere presence of forces inherently creates a risk of escalation. In contemporary doctrines of force employment, defense does not consist solely in intercepting an attack; it often involves neutralizing its source. In other words, one does not merely shoot down the arrow; one seeks to destroy the archer — according to the U.S. Navy’s doctrinal formula “shoot the archer, not the arrow.” Moreover, the geography of the theatre further reinforces this logic. Air missions launched from the Gulf toward northern Iran would require crossing a large part of Iranian territory both outbound and inbound. By contrast, the eastern Mediterranean offers more direct axes of intervention toward the north-west of the country. The mere disposition of forces can thus transform a protective posture into an escalatory capability. The risk of entanglement therefore stems less from a single institutional mechanism than from the interweaving of multiple alliance systems: multilateral alliances, bilateral treaties, and permanent military presence.Europe thus finds itself confronted with a paradoxical situation: it may be drawn into a war it neither initiated nor desired, while remaining exposed to the economic and strategic consequences of a conflict decided elsewhere. Consequently, the more external pressures seek to divide Europe or prevent the emergence of an autonomous European power, the more they reveal the necessity of such a transformation. This is where the historical paradox lies. Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine have already contributed to reviving the question of European military power. In this context, the French proposal to extend the scope of its nuclear deterrence to its European partners may constitute the first concrete outline of a continental strategic pillar. Moreover, the positions adopted by Donald Trump toward Europe could produce a comparable effect at both the political and strategic levels. Far from slowing the emergence of European power, such pressures may in fact accelerate its necessity. History offers numerous examples of political entities that were forged under strategic constraint rather than by initial choice: the United States itself became a federation when it realized that an overly weak confederation could not survive in a conflictual international environment. Europe may now be facing a similar question: in a world that has once again become conflictual, can an economic power sustainably delegate its strategic security to external actors? If the answer is no, a deeper transformation may already be underway: the gradual emergence of a European Leviathan — that is, a political power capable of collectively assuming the essential functions of strategic sovereignty. History may then record an unexpected paradox: those who most sought to prevent the emergence of European power may ultimately have been its true catalysts. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump would thus appear, despite themselves, as those who helped awaken this European Leviathan.Jean-Philippe Battédou

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Can we allow extremists to come to power?

5 March 2026

French political life is now structured around a marked imbalance between radical poles and governing forces. According to trends compiled by PolitPro, parties located at the extremes alone account for nearly 60% of voting intentions: the Rassemblement National reaching around 35%, while the radical left organized around La France insoumise and its allies stands at approximately 24%. The rest of the political landscape appears significantly more fragmented: around 40% of the electorate is divided between the central bloc stemming from the presidential majority (around 14%), the parliamentary right represented by Les Républicains (approximately 12%), and other left-wing forces — socialists, ecologists and related movements — which together account for about 16% of voting intentions. Traditional governing forces are thus relegated to a minority and dispersed position within the political system.This distribution means that no single bloc holds a stable majority. In a two-round majority system, access to the second round depends more on relative ranking than on obtaining an absolute majority in the first round, and in a fragmented landscape, a threshold of around 20 to 22% of the vote may be sufficient to qualify a candidate. The combination of these two elements thus mechanically favors parties with a consolidated electoral base in this arithmetic range over more dispersed competitors.As a result, electoral competition is no longer limited to the ordinary alternation between competing programmes: it increasingly concerns the definition of the people, the scope of rights, and the hierarchy of sovereignties. When rivalry touches upon these substantive elements, electoral defeat may be experienced as a profound challenge rather than a temporary alternation. In such a configuration, two outcomes become theoretically conceivable: either a dynamic of political conflict likely to degenerate into civil war, or, conversely, a hardening of power leading to an illiberal drift of the regime. It is therefore necessary to examine these two scenarios in turn.In the first case, while France is not in a state of civil war, political violence is nonetheless present: antagonistic activist groups exist and have been involved in clashes in recent years — far-left groups, including certain antifascist organizations such as La Jeune Garde, on one side, and far-right groups such as the GUD on the other. Thus, in 2013, Clément Méric, an antifascist activist, was killed during a fight in Paris involving militants from the far-right skinhead movement linked to Troisième Voie and the Jeunesses nationalistes révolutionnaires, while Quentin Deranque died in Lyon in 2026 following a confrontation involving ultra-left militants associated with the group La Jeune Garde, among whom was Jacques-Élie Favrot, parliamentary assistant to La France insoumise MP Raphaël Arnault, charged with complicity in voluntary homicide. These events stem from militant clashes, but they also reveal porous boundaries between militant radicalism and political spheres, feeding a level of conflict that goes beyond mere verbal confrontation.In this regard, on January 6, 2021, a crowd of militants stormed the Capitol in Washington in an attempt to prevent the certification of the U.S. presidential election, in what has been widely analysed as an attempted coup. The failure of this effort owed as much to the intervention of security forces as to the decision of certain institutional actors to uphold the constitutional process, reminding us that democratic stability also depends on the concrete behaviour of political and institutional actors. Even if these elements are not sufficient to characterize an insurrectional situation in France, they demonstrate that the possibility of violent political confrontation is no longer purely abstract.In the second scenario, recent history shows that the destabilization of a regime does not necessarily occur through open violence. Several contemporary trajectories — in Hungary under Viktor Orbán, in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, or in Russia — have followed a different sequence: electoral victory, legal institutional reforms, gradual weakening of checks and balances, and a reduction in political reversibility. Elections persist, but the conditions of competition become asymmetrical. These situations are not identical; nevertheless, they share a common logic of cumulative adjustments rather than abrupt rupture.In France, certain public discourses explicitly place popular sovereignty in tension with institutional checks and balances. On one side of the political spectrum, Marine Le Pen advocates an expanded use of referendums, presented as a direct expression of the will of the people against institutions deemed distant; on the other, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, following the judicial conviction of Marine Le Pen in 2025, has argued that the removal of an elected official should be decided by the people rather than by judges. While these positions differ in their motivations, they share a common effect: shifting the centre of legitimacy toward direct majority expression. The referendum is not in itself illiberal; however, when used against minority protections or judicial independence, it alters the institutional balance, making the issue less about the instrument itself than about its use.This is where the specific architecture of the Fifth Republic comes into play: by concentrating executive authority in a president elected by direct universal suffrage and relying on majority rule, it transforms a presidential victory into rapid legislative capacity, a phenomenon further reinforced since 2000 by the alignment of presidential and legislative calendars following the transition from a seven-year to a five-year term. Consequently, while Parliament holds a central place in the institutions, the alignment of the parliamentary majority with the executive significantly limits its ability to function as an effective counter-power. As a result, an executive backed by a disciplined majority can modify ordinary electoral rules, redefine the status of independent administrative authorities, or adjust the balance between security and liberties through legislation. It is therefore not necessary to violate the Constitution to substantially alter its equilibrium, since such transformations can occur within formal legality. In this respect, comparison with post-1949 Germany is instructive: the Grundgesetz, the German Basic Law, was designed as a “militant democracy,” equipped with an eternity clause protecting certain principles, a Federal Constitutional Court, the possibility of banning parties hostile to the constitutional order, and a federal fragmentation of power. By contrast, the French Fifth Republic was designed to stabilize the executive and avoid parliamentary paralysis, not explicitly to prevent majority capture.Thus, the scenario of an illiberal shift does not require prior intent nor a dramatic rupture. It corresponds to a structural possibility: that of a gradual transformation of the rules of the game by a majority convinced of the need to secure its victory.
Ultimately, the danger lies not in a catastrophic prophecy, but in the combination of substantive polarization and a concentrated institutional architecture.
Democratic resilience depends less on declared intentions than on the ability of institutions to withstand a majority determined to test their limits.Can such a concentrated majoritarian system remain suited to a society that is now tripolar and durably polarized?Jean-Philippe Battédou

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