In the weeks leading up to the appointment of Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister, there was one word in particular to hang on the lips of those at the Elysée Palace – “coalitation”.
The portmanteau of “coalition” and “cohabitation”, “coalitation” serves to refer to the situation of acute governmental deadlock in which France finds itself, more than two months after the snap parliamentary elections called by Emmanuel Macron failed to land any party an absolute majority of seats.
Under the Fifth Republic, France has known three cohabitations following parliamentary elections won by the opposition to the president’s party. The first was between the socialist president François Mitterrand and conservative prime minister Jacques Chirac from 1986 to 1988; the second, between president Mitterrand and Édouard Balladur and prime minister Chirac from 1993 to 1995, and the third between president Chirac and socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin from 1997 to 2002. Under such circumstances, the president took on a secondary role, including tasks such as appointing the prime minister or presiding the council of ministers, while the prime minister and national assembly set the political agenda.
However, the current situation is very different, recalling more the paralysis of the Fourth Republic than any of the duos listed above. While the presidential camp lacks even a relative majority, none of the parties or coalitions from the recent legislative elections come close to securing one either. Michel Barnier will therefore have to rely on a new coalition or new ad hoc agreements to get his legislative proposals passed and avoid being censured.
The French neologism coalitation is therefore more appropriate to describe the situation in which Emmanuel Macron and Michel Barnier find themselves.
A notion of performance
In addition, the is not without recalling expressions used in the labour world, such as ‘remote working’, ‘presenteeism’, ‘management’ and ‘coworking’.
In the 1980s, the expressions ‘management’ and ‘managers’ became widely used terms in France to describe the challenges of optimising resources and managing people in organisations. This period marked the proliferation of neologisms, particularly of English origin, in the business world. It highlighted the importance of individual and collective performance, helping French companies compete in an increasingly global market.
By the 1990s, expressions like “New Public Management” and “New Managerialism” emerged in English-speaking countries. These terms were particularly applied to setting performance targets – especially financial ones – in organisations originally serving the public interest, such as health and education sectors.
An expression used by Macron?
The term “coalitation” was first coined by advisers to the President of the Republic. We can read its use as an attempt to downplay the lack of a presidential majority and to ease the transition into the upcoming cohabitation.
This strategy can be seen as a way for the President to maintain the upper hand despite his party’s defeat in the parliamentary elections. It functions as a semantic tool that allows Macron to frame this cohabitation in a modern and new way, setting it apart from previous ones.
But the links between this term and management-inspired neologisms also reflect Macron’s profile as a “politician manager” and his managerial approach to politics.
An advocate of free enterprise and entrepreneurship, often associated with the “start-up nation” concept, Emmanuel Macron embodies a political philosophy directly influenced by the business world. His terms in office have stood out through their use of team-building seminars, the use of consultants from private firms, and staff reshuffles following unmet performance targets.
Inability to renew?
Back home, the seemingly contradictory term also echoes the president’s fondness for the expression of “En même temps” (“At the same time”) that has become part of the Macron brand. The adverbial phrase sees him lay out a position, only to deconstruct it and espouse its contrary proposition. Critics say it shows the centrist president’s inability to adopt a stance, opting instead for a verbal fudge of saying one thing, then its opposite and ultimately, nothing at all.
The neologism coalitation also embodies a new form of the Macronist “at the same time” philosophy by emphasising the need to find common ground between opposing programmes and political forces. For supporters of the president, this term highlights the relevance and timeliness of an approach developed by Emmanuel Macron. In this context, Michel Barnier’s profile as a negotiator and moderate can be seen as a reaffirmation of this strategy.
Historically, however, the use of such neologisms has sometimes served to mask the challenges of ineffective or risky strategies. Some researchers have questioned whether introducing expressions like ‘management’ and ‘manager’ into the French vocabulary truly changed how companies and social relations worked, emphasising the sometimes artificial nature of these approaches.
The same applies today to the term “coalitation” as this neologism seems to illustrate Emmanuel Macron’s struggle to offer a new way of doing politics despite the promises made on the night of his re-election.
