French Parliament divided over bid to rewrite political rules

The bill would allow the president to speak before parliament for the first time, but limits the president to two five-year terms and expands parliament’s powers by allowing it to veto major presidential appointments and reduce the government’s abilities to push through legislation. The presidency would also be required to inform parliament of any troop deployment overseas, and to win parliamentary authorization for any such deployment lasting more than four months.

France’s European partners are watching a key measure that could require French voters to approve membership of future EU entrants, such as Turkey. Voters in France, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, generally oppose Turkish membership.

Sarkozy’s conservative party UMP has pushed the reform bill, but opposition Socialists say it still leaves the president with too much power.

Socialist lawmaker Arnaud Montebourg said Monday the reform would create “a kind of monocracy”.

Hours before the vote, it remained unclear whether the government would have enough support to pass the bill with the required three-fifths majority. Exceptionally, abstentions will not be counted toward the total. Just in case of problems, officials decided to hold a separate manual count in addition to the standard electronic one.

If the reform fails, it would be a first in France’s modern history. No constitutional reform has been rejected in such a joint session of parliament.

A failure would also be a blow to Sarkozy, who introduced the reform idea a year ago and has taken a personal interest in recent days in trying to keep his ruling majority together to support the bill.