Introduction

Abstract

Were it not that the gates were already locked and the Luxembourg Gardens had assumed their nocturnal calm, or that most of its incumbents were engaged elsewhere, on the evening of 6 May 2007 the innocent promeneur in that delightful Parisian park might have heard a collective sigh of relief issue from the palace that houses the French Senate. The confirmation, a little after eight in the evening, that Nicolas Sarkozy had seen off the challenge of Ségolène Royal, meant that the right-wing Senate majority would not have to cohabit with a Socialist President and National Assembly intent on reforming the upper house. The fact that a number of senior senators had lent their weight to the campaign of the President-elect and that he in turn was planning to name one of them prime minister, added to the satisfaction.² Until 2002, when Jacques Chirac chose Jean-Pierre Raffarin, no senator had been appointed to the Hôtel Matignon since Michel Debré in 1959. Sarkozy’s choice of François Fillon meant that the Senate would provide a second prime minister in the space of five years.³ It was no mere coincidence either that the only members of parliament Sarkozy invited to join him, his family and closest friends at a celebration dinner at Fouquet’s that evening were both senators: Raffarin and Fillon.⁴

There are two holy places in the Republic: school and parliament.¹