Going Partisan Again? The Contested Technocratic Leadership of Emmanuel Macron and the Return of Parliamentary Politics in 2024 French Political Crisis

This proposal questions some features of the current French political crisis drawing on literature on technocratic governments and political leadership (Caramani, 2017; Costa Pinto et al., 2018; Emanuele et al., 2023). It would aim to fill a gap in the technocratic government scholarship through a case study, by showing the political and institutional conditions under which partisan resources are re-legitimized by non-populist parties. The French case is particularly interesting, given the specific role of the President of the Republic as regards ministerial appointments. The paper would explore the professional and political backgrounds and characteristics of the French ministers from 2017 onwards through a dataset (relying on official websites and biographical dictionaries) and a qualitative analysis of the rationales behind Macron's ministerial appointments. My hypothesis is that the French crisis of 2024 led to a reversal of the configuration emerging from 2017, in which political parties had been delegitimized in favor of a technocrat-led government. The return of parties can be explained by the institutional and political configuration. On the one hand, in the absence of an absolute majority, the 2027 presidential election is at the center of the parties' strategic calculations: opposition parties ‘decide not to govern’ and do not seek to form an alternative majority. This leads to the formation of ‘presidential governments’ with no absolute majority. On the other hand, Macron is trying to maintain his leadership by forming a minimal majority. For this, he relies on partisan caretakers (McDonnell and Valbruzzi, 2014) from minority parties. My first results tend to confirm this hypothesis. The 2017 election led to the victory of Macron, a young top-civil servant who claimed no partisan commitment, challenging traditional politics (Clift and McDaniel, 2017). In his first term and at the start of his second, Macron chose three technocrat PMs: Edouard Philippe (a top civil servant already involved in politics), Jean Castex and Elisabeth Borne (with no political background). Their governments were a mix of partisan (from left and right) and technocrat ministers. Macron chose individuals and did not rely on parties (Dolez et al., 2022). The absence of an absolute majority from 2022 called this strategy into question, as it forced the presidential party to seek allies in Parliament. It also led to political instability, prompting Macron to dissolve the Assemblée nationale in June 2024. However, as of January 2025, the French political crisis has not resulted in a new technocratic government - even though this possibility was raised in public debate. On the contrary, the composition of governments shows that ministers are increasingly partisan. Recent appointed PMs are political actors - Gabriel Attal (a young leader from the macronist party), Michel Barnier and François Bayrou (both 73-year-old politicians already ministers in the 1990s) - such as most ministers -, showing a new trend. This proposal makes an empirical and theoretical contribution to the technocratic government scholarship, insisting on the rationales and strategies behind the appointments of technocrat or partisan ministers. It could fit in the first panel.