He has stood out in recent years for his stance in favour of fundamental freedoms and the fight against discrimination. At the time of the snap parliamentary elections in 2024, he was one of the few figures from the Right to warn of the need to “set up a broad republican front” among mainstream parties against the far-right, and one that did not exclude the radical-left La France Insoumise (LFI). “The republican front has some unacceptable nuances, in my opinion,” he said at the time, as a debate took place among centrists and on the centre-right as to whether the LFI should be included in it.
A year and the fall of two governments later, Jacques Toubon, France's former 'Défenseur des droits' or human rights ombudsman, says he is disappointed to see “political leaders still chasing after power” rather than agreeing to share it. Pointing to the widening gap between how the political institutions work and the indifference of citizens, he warns: “The far-right is on the rise because the whole system, both Right and Left, is no longer coming up with answers.” Below is his interview with Mediapart.
Mediapart: Social unrest, two falls of government in less than a year, a new prime minister who has still not yet formed his ministerial team… Some speak of a political crisis, others of a regime crisis. How would you describe the present state of affairs?
Jacques Toubon: The country goes on running without a government and without an absolute majority in the National Assembly, which proves that the institutions work. The only question that arises, in my view, is whether French men and women in politics, who have lived in this system of absolute majority since 1962 [editor's note, under the presidential system installed under the Fifth Republic, either the Right or Left have usually had majorities in the National Assembly allowing the president to get their policies through] are able to work in another way. That's what we shall see in the coming weeks.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The big failure is that many people can't imagine how the government of the Fifth Republic works when there's no majority. It's obviously much harder, but the fact is that the system now operates on the basis of a working majority and therefore, of course, through agreement. I can't understand why, for a year now, the talks required to win a confidence vote have not taken place.
The “central bloc” must now build a working governing majority. There's no other way. But will political leaders have enough self-denial to put the common good ahead of their personal or their party interest? If not, then the situation will have to be untangled by a fresh dissolution [of the National Assembly] to ask voters what they want.
Mediapart: You still defend the regime of the Fifth Republic?
J.T.: Of course! The president of the Republic nominates a prime minister, and that prime minister can, if they have the skill, absolutely build a working majority that makes it possible to govern. Once again, I think it's absurd to say that it can't work if there's no absolute majority. Everyone simply has to accept that the implementation of government decisions is no longer automatic.
Those who talk of a regime crisis while waving their arms on stage are talking nonsense. What would be their way out of this supposed regime crisis, and their way of implementing new institutions? A return to a parliamentary regime [editor's note, as under the previous Fourth Republic]? Or, on the contrary, a fully presidential system? I don't believe in such institutional tinkering at all. On the contrary, I think that we must take things as they are and make them work in another way.
Mediapart: Except that it doesn't work…
J.T.: Because political leaders go on chasing after power, as if this power were by its nature based on a majority. They won't accept the idea of negotiating their chance to govern – yet that's what all other countries do except France. There must be some genuine public soul-searching. As long as no one will share power with the “opposing camp”, the situation will remain blocked.
Emmanuel Macron sought to pit presidential authority against parliamentary elections.
We can't, of course, be satisfied with this state of affairs. Yet everyone seems to think it's possible to drift along with prime ministers who last a fortnight. And yet there are issues on which we could all agree. The law on assisted dying, for instance. It's been two years now… It's time to govern, to garner votes and turn them into laws.
Mediapart: Political figures all pass the buck for this deadlock. Who do you hold responsible?
J.T.: There's a joint responsibility. I'm really struck by the way the political world seems to give up the moment there's no absolute majority. The president has, of course, a particular responsibility since he should be pushing for this working majority in order to find the balance between what he wants and what the majority of Parliament wants. For the moment, we're not there.
No doubt, someone “representative” of the centre-left which came top in the 2024 snap elections should have been nominated [editor's note, as prime minister]. Instead, Emmanuel Macron sought to pit presidential authority against parliamentary elections. Yet we're not at all in the same kind of situation that has prevailed throughout the Fifth [Republic]… The president was elected as a minority president, he remains a minority president, but he continues to act as if that wasn't the case.
Mediapart: There's been a lot of talk about dissolution of the Assembly just now, others even speak of - sometimes even demand – the president's resignation. Do these prospects seem to you unavoidable, even desirable?
J.T.: I have no set view on dissolution, it may prove necessary but with the risk that we end up with the [editor's note, far-right] Rassemblement National as the dominant player… To be honest, I'd be very worried if there were parliamentary elections today. That's why I think we must try everything to hold out until the next elections. We can't be happy with a situation where people prefer the defeat of others to their own success.
As for the idea of triggering an early presidential election, I find it totally idiotic. That's not the problem. Our problem is finding a majority in Parliament. Let's suppose that a president, this one or some other one, were to be elected again with a minority in Parliament… We'd end up in the same deadlock. That's why we must change our ways and stop saying “if I don't have all the power, I won't wield any of it”.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
Mediapart: If there is an issue about the institutions, it's also due to the ever-more glaring gap between the decision-making process and what the people want.
J.T.: There is indeed a great disconnect today between the way political institutions work and the people, who seem not to care at all. I think the bulk of people are indifferent, they don't even ask themselves if they have a government of the Right or Left. We live as if politics has no influence over our daily lives, and that's rather worrying.
Because I think that at some point choices have to be made and in a democracy like ours these choices can only be political ones. In particular, that means recreating a Right and a Left. Frankly, that would be the bare minimum, wouldn't it? The established parties, who held power ten years ago, have today become minority parties.
Mediapart: Let's speak about the Right, your former political family, now led by figures who reach out more and more to the far-right. How did we get here? What did your generation fail to do that your legacy has boiled down to this?
J.T.: We no doubt bear some responsibility, but we're not the only ones. Parties are so weak today that they try to strengthen themselves by moving onto the ground of those who seem a bit stronger. The centre goes more to the Right, the Right goes more to the far-right… It's a system of electoral clientelism. I don't believe in that at all. I think we succeed by bringing people together, not by chasing after the far-right.
Mediapart: Would you still call yourself rightwing?
J.T.: I don't know. I don't define myself like that, in fact I never did. When, for instance, at the end of the 1990s I began to deal with the issue of immigration I was very clearly out of step. The Right simply said “we don't want migrants”, which is nonsense since every society, every nation is mixed. So the only question is: how do we deal with immigration?
Society is in denial over discrimination. Many people are content with formal equality.
When we created the RPR [editor's note, Rassemblement pour la République, the main centre-right movement of its day] with [former president] Jacques Chirac, I didn't feel we were founding a rightwing movement. At the time we spoke of a “French-style labour movement” – many mocked it, by the way. Just listen to the speeches at the [party] conference at the Porte de Versailles [editor's note, a conference centre in Paris] on December 5th 1976: there you have a popular, security-minded, social stance that can't be pigeon-holed. The more time passed, the more we moved to the Right and the fewer of us there were.
Mediapart: You were Défenseur des droits between 2014 and 2020. How do you explain the fact that your work led to so little political follow-up? Did you feel like you were crying in the wilderness?
J.T.: Not at all. Because when I was Défenseur des droits, we took a number of decisions and we implemented them. There were many advances, particularly over the rights of foreigners. This job calls for independence, political skill and a certain knowledge of public and private law. In light of that, the choice of my successor [editor's note, journalist Claire Hédon] surprised me. Did the president simply wish not to be bothered by the holder of the post?
Mediapart: But beyond the decision-making circles, do you not feel that much of society has become numbed to the issue of discrimination?
J.T.: One of the biggest parts of my work as Défenseur des droits was to shine a light on discrimination. Society is in denial about this issue. I think many people are content with formal equality. The clearest example is the situation between men and women. We know that we're still far from equality between women and men, and yet this gap continues.
Mediapart: At the end of June, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled against France for the first time for discrimination over identity checks. What was your reaction? How do you explain the fact that governments have never treated this issue seriously?
J.T.: I'm very happy about this ruling. I fought hard on the issue when I was Défenseur des droits, but it's impossible to get a government to pass a law on stop-and-search. For political reasons, simply because of populism. And so, it goes via the courts. It's the courts that do the job and make rulings. Case law takes the place of laws that governments don't want to get adopted.
To me, that's the sign of a system that's working very well. I don't share the mistrust that many political leaders have towards judicial power. I think that in the system we have, one of a three-way division of powers, it's important that the judiciary makes rulings that can be turned into the law. And especially when the political authorities don't pass these laws even though they're needed.
Enlargement : Illustration 3
Political leaders think that most people don't want to see rights recognised for those who suffer discrimination. I don't believe that. On the contrary, I think that the public is ready to accept many things. And I think the present government and Parliament are not bold enough on a number of issues, in particular those that touch on the rights of foreigners.
Mediapart: Yet we see a rise in the far-right and its ideas, in particular at the ballot box.
J.T.: Well yes, we can certainly say that people have knee-jerk beliefs, above all on the issue of borders and migration, which shape the world, and Europe in particular. But these beliefs are not based on legal or political facts. And at the same time, to take the example of healthcare, 80% of people say you can't treat foreigners in hospital differently.
So there is, on the one hand, a knee-jerk belief, and on the other, a clear fact. Public opinion is full of contradictions, which is why it's the role of those in power and MPs to give direction and to ask citizens if they agree or not with such and such a proposal, whether we should continue in this direction or change course. The far-right is on the rise because the whole system, both Right and Left, is no longer coming up with answers.
For now, the republican front [editor's note, the election tactic in which the mainstream Left and Right agree on the best candidate to support to keep out the far-right] still works – and I personally think it will work again because most French people don't want the far-right in power. But the republican front is not a policy, it's an election tactic. So something else needs to be proposed. I'm fairly hopeful, I think it can work. We just need to find men and women in politics who are prepared to rethink the way they do things.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter