Abstract
The disappointing adaptation of the French Parliament to the EU is considered to be the result of the limited interest of MPs, considered individually or collectively, to embrace European issues. At the individual level, MPs can hardly ever maximize their utility through participating in specialised procedures—be them vote, office or policy seekers. At the collective level, the opposition still holds a limited role and the European issue is not central to the management of coalitions. Nevertheless, the chapter supports the view that the analysis of parliamentarians should go beyond a pure rational framework. There are indeed some types of activities and procedures that do not directly aim at filling exogenous aims. Therefore, the complexity of the adaptation of the French MPs can be better understood at the level of the patterns of behaviour and attitude of groups of representatives. The concept of parliamentary roles is regarded as a key unit for analysis of the Europeanisation of national parliaments.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Using a mixed method called Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), Tapio Raunio (2005) demonstrates that the institutional power of the Parliament constitutes the only necessary condition for its affirmation in European matters, with this factor and critical public opinion acting as sufficient condition.
- 3.
For a comparative point of view from 2004: Mattila and Raunio 2006.
- 4.
Noëlle Lenoir was Junior Minister of European Affairs from 2002 to 2004.
- 5.
Out of all MEPs—not only French (Beauvallet et al. 2018).
- 6.
13 December 1999 circular on the application of Article 88-4 of the Constitution.
- 7.
As well as Romania, episodically (Wessels and Rozenberg 2013).
- 8.
ENA is the acronym for the prestigious National School of Administration.
- 9.
- 10.
Information report no. 3468, ‘La France dans l’Union européenne: renouer avec l’influence perdue’, National Assembly, 14th Parliament, tabled by the European Affairs Committee and presented by Christophe Caresche and Pierre Lequiller, 2016.
- 11.
See summary record no. 239 of the European Affairs Committee, 13th Parliament.
- 12.
National Assembly document no. 4196, 13th Parliament, draft European resolution for the European recovery and the reinforcement of democratic control, presented by Jean-Marc Ayrault, Élisabeth Guigou, and Christophe Caresche, 23 January 2012.
- 13.
From 1986 to 2002, France experienced a system of divided government (called cohabitation) half of the time. France’s European policy is handled by a subtle co-decision system, in which the President has greater say when the decision rises to the European Council. Apart from the rapprochement of their positions, the sharing of responsibility in allowing or reducing the ambiguity of the constitutional text leads political actors in government parties to avoid attacking each other on this ground (Leuffen 2009).
- 14.
See Chap. 7.
- 15.
Sébastien Lazardeux (2009) shows that the strengthening of parliamentary control under the Fifth Republic was supported by dissident groups in the minority, most often from within the right. The opposition then used the tools it had been unable to create.
- 16.
I.e., the conditions of the leftist coalition’s programme in 1997 relating to the transition to the euro.
- 17.
In the late 2000s (Bakker et al. 2015).
- 18.
See Chap. 8.
- 19.
Bailer and Schneider (2006) arrive at opposite conclusions to Finke and Herbel.
- 20.
13 December 1999 circular on the application of Article 88-4 of the Constitution.
- 21.
- 22.
On the bureaucratisation of the procedure: Auel et al. 2015.
- 23.
The MP’s relative powerlessness over his or her electoral fate and over public action obviously does not imply that he or she is inactive in these areas. Truly, this powerlessness is merely relative: parliamentarians can influence public policies, perceptions, and opinions as well as their own chances of re-election from the margins. Moreover, agents may have varying degrees of awareness of this powerlessness. Finally, European parliamentarians’ delegation in favour of executives or party leaders is not without its limits. One determining vector of a party leader or minister’s political capital is the support of his or her parliamentary party group, expressed through mechanisms both formal (the confidence vote) and informal (for example, press campaigns).
- 24.
- 25.
As opposed to the logic of consequences (March and Olsen 1989).
- 26.
A large room next to the hemicycle where MPs meet journalists.
- 27.
- 28.
Antony Giddens speaks of ‘prescriptions of roles’ (Giddens 1979, p. 117).
- 29.
- 30.
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Rozenberg, O. (2020). The Enrolment of National Parliamentarians. In: The French Parliament and the European Union. French Politics, Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19791-9_3
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