Vincent Madiard

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC BETRAYED (3/5) The Rhetoric That Masks the Shift The Language That Conceals the Shift in Power French political leaders did not discover after the fact that their hands were tied. They knew what they were signing. Maastricht left no ambiguity on this point: it transferred governing powers, created a single currency managed beyond national control, and established rules that limited an elected government's ability to act on its own. The treaties that followed continued in the same direction. Those who negotiated, defended, or implemented them understood the scope of those commitments. Yet they continued to speak of the Republic, sovereignty, and defending French interests. That language has not disappeared. If anything, it has grown more insistent over the years, precisely as real power has moved further away. We still hear the same refrains today: “The Republic is under attack.” “We must defend the values of the Republic.” “That goes against the Republic.” Leaders across the political spectrum repeat them, including those who contributed most to the transfer of governing powers. The Socialists were no exception. François Hollande, who had been a Young Global Leader, continued down the same path once he became president. During his presidency, France continued to accept European rules that bound national decision-making, even as its leaders repeatedly invoked the Republic and its values. The same pattern appears among those who claim to uphold de Gaulle's legacy or defend national sovereignty: the rhetoric remains, but their actions follow the logic of the other model. This contradiction is not the result of constraints imposed on reluctant leaders. It is the product of repeated choices. The politicians who ratified these treaties, appointed officials to European institutions, and participated in networks discussing governance beyond nation-states knew that the center of decision-making was shifting. They chose to preserve the language of the Republic rather than tell the French people plainly that the principle of government “by the people and for the people” applied less and less to the issues that mattered. That choice has a direct consequence. Citizens keep hearing that the Republic is being defended. At the same time, they see their votes carry less weight on monetary policy, some budget rules, trade policy, and a growing range of regulations. The results of thirty years of this practice are plain to see. Budget deficits have widened without successive governments being able, or willing, to regain full control over the policy levers that matter. The purchasing power of French citizens has come under pressure from decisions made within systems where they do not have the final say. France's public services have deteriorated while billions have been committed to priorities set elsewhere. The sovereignty proclaimed in the Constitution has not prevented entire areas of policy from slipping beyond the control of the French people. This is no accident. It is the logical consequence of a philosophy that holds that the people of a nation should not have the final say, put into practice by leaders who have continued to speak the language of the Republic. The familiar warnings that “the Republic is under attack” do not describe what is happening. They conceal it. What is under attack is not an abstract principle. It is the French people's actual ability to decide matters that affect them in their own country. The leaders who repeat these lines know it. They helped engineer the shift. Yet they continue to speak as though the Republic defined by the Constitution were still the framework within which power is actually exercised. Citizens, meanwhile, bear the cost: less freedom of action at the national level, deteriorating public finances, and a growing sense that the decisions that matter are being made elsewhere. What was defended was not the Republic. It was a different model of governance, one that kept the Republic's language to advance its own agenda.

Quand l’empathie se dérègle, les priorités s’inversent. On ne se contente plus de protéger ceux qui en ont besoin. On finit par placer certains groupes au-dessus des autres, au détriment de la réalité et de ceux qui subissent les conséquences. Les clandestins avant les citoyens. Les criminels avant les victimes. Les sentiments avant la réalité biologique. « Ma vérité » avant la vérité. Ce ne sont pas des accidents. Ce sont les résultats logiques d’une empathie qui a perdu ses repères. Parmi ces inversions, laquelle vous semble la plus flagrante aujourd’hui ? Dans deux jours : ce que ça produit concrètement. #EmpathieSuicidaire

L’empathie mal placée a un coût. Et ce sont souvent les mêmes qui le paient. Quand on place systématiquement la situation d’un groupe au-dessus de celle des citoyens ou des victimes, les conséquences ne restent pas abstraites. En matière d’immigration, des politiques facilitent l’arrivée et le maintien de personnes en situation irrégulière. La capacité d’accueil, la sécurité et les citoyens qui respectent les règles passent au second plan. En matière de justice, des peines allégées ou des libérations anticipées donnent parfois la priorité au profil du délinquant plutôt qu’à la protection des victimes. Dans les deux cas, l’intention affichée est la compassion. Le résultat observable est souvent une plus grande insécurité pour ceux qui n’ont rien demandé. Dans deux jours : quand la réalité biologique est traitée comme un sentiment. #EmpathieSuicidaire

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC BETRAYED (1/5) Two Visions of Political Power The Republic They Invoke Is Not the One They Uphold We hear the same refrains over and over. “The Republic is under attack.” “We must defend the values of the Republic.” “That goes against the Republic.” Nearly every French political leader, on the left and the right, reaches for these lines whenever public dissent becomes too visible. They deliver them with solemn gravity, as though the Republic were something fragile that must be protected from enemies both foreign and domestic. Yet when we look at what these same leaders do once in office, the principle they claim to defend is no longer at the heart of their decisions. It becomes a matter of rhetoric. Real power, meanwhile, moves elsewhere. To understand this contradiction, we need to return to what the French Republic says about itself and set it against another political philosophy that has gained considerable influence among governing elites over the past several decades. The two offer fundamentally different answers to who should make decisions and what the people are capable of deciding for themselves. The Constitution of France's Fifth Republic is clear on the essential point. Article 3 states that “national sovereignty belongs to the people.” Article 2 establishes the principle of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” This is not a decorative phrase. It means that, within the national political framework, French citizens have the final say, and public institutions exist to answer to them. We can debate how that principle is implemented, electoral systems, or the balance of powers. But the location of sovereignty is clear: the French people are sovereign in their own country. This idea belongs to an older tradition, one that holds that a rational political order can be understood and that citizens are capable of governing themselves within a defined political community. It is the tradition invoked by a speech such as Marco Rubio's in Athens, which contrasted it with approaches that prefer to move decision-making into broader, less accountable institutions. Opposed to this stands a different political philosophy, articulated in part by Karl Popper and widely championed by George Soros. The concept of the “open society” begins with a different premise: no truth is final, every society must remain open to criticism and change, and overly rigid national frameworks risk becoming obstacles. Under this logic, the people of a particular country are not necessarily the best judges of their own interests. They can be wrong, be swayed, or choose “closed” solutions. Hence the preference for institutions, treaties, and networks that transcend national borders and allow decisions made by national electorates to be corrected or constrained. Openness is no longer merely a moral value. It becomes a way of organizing power. Important decisions are seen as better made, or at least tightly constrained, at a level where citizens of an individual nation exercise less direct control. These two approaches are not minor variations on the same idea. They answer opposing questions. The first asks: How do we ensure that the people remain the decision-makers within their own political community? The second asks: How do we prevent a people, within their own country, from making decisions that others consider wrong? One places accountability and control at the national level. The other tends to shift them toward supranational institutions, circles of experts, and networks operating beyond the ordinary electoral cycle. One can prefer either approach. But one cannot honestly practice the second while claiming that the first remains intact. Yet that is precisely what much of France's political class has been doing for years. They continue to invoke the language of the Republic: “republican values,” “the Republic is under attack,” “defending the Republic.” Meanwhile, their actual choices, from treaties and transfers of governing powers to international policy alignments and participation in forums discussing governance beyond nation-states, follow the logic of the open society. The word “Republic” remains. The principle that the French people have the final say in their own country is steadily being stripped of its substance. The rest of this series will show how this contradiction plays out in practice. But the starting point is simple: you cannot claim to defend the sovereignty of the people while systematically arranging to bypass it, decision after decision. Familiar warnings that “the Republic is under attack” often conceal the opposite reality. What is being defended is not the Republic in its constitutional sense. It is a different model of governance, one that still speaks in the Republic's name.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC BETRAYED (2/5) How Power Shifted Beyond France How the Second Model Took Hold in France The constitutional principle remained on the books. In practice, however, France began moving sharply away from it in the early 1990s. The Maastricht Treaty, signed in 1992 and entering into force the following year, marked the point at which this shift became structural. The treaty did more than deepen cooperation among European states. It created the European Union, established the framework for a single currency among participating member states, and expanded the areas in which decisions could be made at the European level rather than the national one. The currency, trade policy, parts of fiscal policy, and gradually other powers came under a system in which the French people no longer had the final say on their own. This was no minor technical adjustment. Under the logic of the open society, an overly rigid national framework is an obstacle. Nations can make mistakes, elect “closed” majorities, or reject solutions that others consider necessary. The Maastricht Treaty addressed this concern by establishing mechanisms that restricted national freedom of action. The convergence criteria, the future independent European Central Bank, and the primacy of European law over national law all made it harder for a French government to act on its own, even when French voters had elected it to do precisely that. Citizens still cast their ballots. But those ballots carried less weight in the areas where authority had been transferred. French political leaders did not present this shift as an abandonment of the republican principle. They often described it as modernization, a necessity in the face of globalization, or even a continuation of Charles de Gaulle's legacy. Jacques Chirac, who claimed to stand in the Gaullist tradition, campaigned for a “yes” vote in the 1992 referendum. Later, during his presidency, France adopted the euro. Successive governments, on both the right and the left, continued down the same path through the treaties of Amsterdam, Nice, and Lisbon. At every stage, the language of the Republic remained unchanged. Politicians still spoke of sovereignty, defending French interests, and republican values. In practice, however, an increasing number of decisions were moving beyond the direct control of the French people. This contradiction was not an accidental drift. It followed the logic of the second political philosophy described earlier. If no truth is final and the people of a nation can be wrong, then shifting some authority toward institutions less exposed to national electoral cycles becomes a rational choice. Maastricht and the treaties that followed provided the legal framework for that shift. The politicians who negotiated, ratified, or implemented those agreements continued to speak the language of the Republic. They did not rewrite the constitutional principle of popular sovereignty. They simply created, treaty by treaty, the conditions under which that sovereignty would carry less and less weight on the issues that mattered most. The consequences are plain to see more than thirty years later. A French government can still be elected on a national political platform. But once in office, it discovers, or pretends to discover, that large parts of its agenda are already constrained by rules established elsewhere, or that it must negotiate with institutions that are not accountable to the French people. The word “Republic” is still invoked. Yet the principle that the people should have the final say in their own country has gradually been hollowed out. What was defended throughout this process was not the Republic itself. It was a different system of government, one that still speaks in the Republic's name.