Marine Le Pen, former president of France’s far-right party National Rally and currently a French presidential candidate, on Thursday raised the question in an interview with a French newspaper of who would be in charge of the military if her party takes over the government after snap parliamentary elections starting Sunday, June 30.
Would you rather some unelected general has the final say?
A trained, tested military man instead of a reactionary, hateful, nationalist?
Hell yeah I would
Well, what you will get is a “reactionary, hateful, nationalist” that is in addition unelected and largely unaccountable. Have fun with the inevitable military coup.
Why not have the parliament have the final say?
This is a valid point of view. However, in the current french constitution, as it, the elected president has the final authority over the army, which even without the majority at the parliament makes the president able to manage foreign policy. (Sure the parliament can not vote the budget which would technically limit this power).
If Macrons wants to send troops to Ukraine next year, Le Pen, won’t have many way to stop him. Well, the parliament can not votes the budget which would strongly limit the ability of the “troops” to work effectively, but that’s it. In the previous case of cohabiation, it wasn’t a big proble, conservative and socialists are reasonable person who can work together well enough to find arrangement on foreign policy. Think can be more complex with neo-liberals like Macron and far-righter like Le pen
I’m not much too deep into french politics. I just wanted to point out that there are more options than either of two persons having too much control, simply because I hate false dichotomy fallacies.