Abstract
Career politicians have a reduced interest in investing in European activities as indicated by the portraits of several French politicians. At best, the European dimension is seen as a dimension of a statesperson’s credibility through the publicity made around a personal top-level network. The political outsiders constitute yet an exception. The criticism of European treaties constitutes a risky but potentially successful strategy for those claiming the leadership of their party or coalition. Key events in the career of top political leaders are considered in that perspective showing that the parliamentary setting and actors often play a key role in those tales.
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Notes
- 1.
For Searing, one quarter of House of Commons backbenchers were ministerial aspirants and were further divided into subalterns and high flyers (1994, chapter 3).
- 2.
Moreover, Barrau, who was Mayor of Béziers from 1989 to 1995 and then leader of the municipal opposition had to rally round Jean-Claude Gayssot’s (Communist) candidature for Mayor of Béziers in 2001. Jospin’s Minister for Transport failed on this occasion.
- 3.
Law no. 2000-108 of 10 February 2000.
- 4.
Searing notes moreover that the most ambitious MPs are careful not to over-specialise: ‘When specialization is carried too far, aspirants become identified with particular hobbyhorses and risk riding on the backbenches rather than running in the race’ (1994, p. 95).
- 5.
After its first reading at the Assembly on 2 March 1999, the bill on electricity was approved by 258 MPs against 239 and 50 voluntary abstentions; 28 of the 35 members of the Communist group abstained. The opening of the gas market to competition was transposed during the following Parliament by Law no. 2004-803 of 9 August 2004, which the Socialists and Communists opposed.
- 6.
Source: Beauvallet and Michon (2016).
- 7.
‘De l”extimité’ en politique: Alain Juppé et son blog-notes’, Pierre Sadran, Le Monde, 15 January 2005.
- 8.
This account is based on articles in the Figaro, Le Monde, and Libération.
- 9.
Libération, 23 April 1998, and Le Monde, 24 April 1998.
- 10.
Libération, 23 April 1998.
- 11.
Le Monde, 24 April 1998.
- 12.
He nevertheless decided to stand for candidacy and was re-elected in December 1998 before resigning during the European elections campaign in April 1999.
- 13.
Fabius was 38 when he was named Prime Minister by Mitterrand in 1984. The infected blood scandal was related to HIV transmission caused by blood transfusion. Fabius was acquitted for it in 1999. From 2000 to 2002, he was Minister for Economy, Finance, and Industry within the government led by Jospin.
- 14.
From signatures given at the PS Congress in Dijon in May 2003.
- 15.
Le Monde, 19 October 2004.
- 16.
On the introduction of the ethnological concept of eligibility to French MPs: Costa and Kerrouche (2007, pp. 12–18).
- 17.
- 18.
Pearson’s R. The choice of MPs in each département is calculated by subtracting the number of MPs in favour and against the treaty in each département.
- 19.
This is the rate of correlation between the level of the ‘Yes’ vote and the difference between the MPs in favour of and opposed to the Treaty in each of the 58 French départements where at least one socialist MP was elected (Pearson’s R).
- 20.
Source: public archives of the PS.
- 21.
Le Monde, 24 April 1998.
- 22.
JORF, AN, CR, second session, Tuesday 5 October 2004, p. 7466.
- 23.
See Chap. 2: until 2008, the Assemblies could adopt resolutions (and therefore vote) only for draft EU legislation within the field of law (and not regulation) according to the French Constitution’s definition of legal purview. Yet, from 1999, the government had the possibility (but not the obligation) to submit any other text to the Parliament for passing a resolution. It was referred to as the optional clause.
- 24.
Le Figaro, 3 January 2005.
- 25.
JORF, AN, CR, 15 October 2004, p. 7941.
- 26.
Also alluded to by Parsons (2007).
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Rozenberg, O. (2020). The Career Politician: The Europeanisation of Political Outsiders. In: The French Parliament and the European Union. French Politics, Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19791-9_7
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