The senators worked on the subject for a year and a half based on a simple question: what institutional developments would be desirable in our country to revive the flagging confidence of the French?
The results of this work, chaired by President Gérard Larcher and reported by Senator LR of Rhône François Noël Buffet, were unveiled Tuesday in the Senate. With 5 axes and 20 proposals, the parliamentarians identify avenues intended to guide the country towards 4 objectives: the revitalization of democracy, the revaluation of the local mandate, the rebalancing of powers between the executive and the parliament, then the modernization of the jurisdictions.
Among the most notable proposals made by the representatives of all the senatorial groups, we note, at the top, the restoration of the accumulation between the parliamentary mandate and a local executive mandate (with a limitation of the accumulation of compensation). The elected representatives of the Upper House also advocate greater accessibility to the shared initiative referendum by lowering the threshold of necessary support to 2.4 million voters compared to the current 4.8 million.
In addition to clarifying the rules relating to illegal taking of interest, senators also support clarifying and regulating the use of orders. And they are calling for a review of the terms of appointment of French members of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union (by providing for a hearing of French candidates by specialized committees of the two assemblies) .
Concerning the intervention of armed forces abroad, the parliamentarians of the Senate propose the organization of an annual debate. Then, they are also in favor of removing former presidents of the Republic as members of right and for life.
In his introduction to the report, President Larcher recalls that the Senate had already made 40 proposals to the President of the Republic in January 2018, following the presidential desire to carry out a revision of the Constitution to reduce the number of parliamentarians and limit the number of consecutive mandates. “The constitutional revision projects carried out by the President of the Republic have, however, failed twice”, underlines the President of the Senate, before also recalling that the announced creation of a transpartisan commission to reflect on the developments of the institutions had ” never saw the light of day”, any more than the meetings in Saint-Denis gave rise to “concrete translations”.
Hence the desire to initiate this work, the fruit of ten meetings. “In the light of these exchanges, the working group has shown that if it does not appear relevant to transform certain institutional fields, others deserve certain developments”, finally maintains Gérard Larcher, before submitting the twenty ideas of the senators on the desk of the executive and its counterpart at the presidency of the National Assembly.