By Hajer M'tiri
PARIS (AA) – France should abolish the post of prime minister in order to have “one head of the executive, ” argued former French President Francois Hollande on Thursday.
Hollande made the comments in an interview with Public Senat, the Senate's broadcaster, as part of a debate marking the 60th anniversary of the Fifth Republic.
“This person, the prime minister, which we do not know if he is still the majority leader — Edouard Philippe is not even a member of the majority party — or if he is a collaborator, ” said Hollande, whose five years in the presidency ended last year.
“I consider that it is necessary, in the words of Georges Pompidou, to cut the Gordian knot, ” and “go all the way, that is to say that the president of the republic should be the sole head of the executive,” he argued.
And to avoid a “hyper-presidency, ” Hollande proposed “a parliament that will in many ways resemble the power of the U.S. Congress … and a president of the republic elected for five years, who must fulfill his mandate and who is necessarily the leader of the majority. ”
The former president added that “the hyper-presidency ” that we have seen “for years ” is “not related to the current Constitution ” but to a “too-weak parliament ” and this “diarchy within the executive. ”
