Determining and Conducting France’s European Policy: A Model of Symbiosis Between Presidential and Administrative Power

Among the several factors explaining the process of ‘hyper-presidentialisation’ of the French Fifth Republic over time, one can identify an important but often neglected dimension: the evolving nature of the European construction, which has become an integrated part of the multi-level governance connecting France with its neighbours. In this chapter, we analyse the French ‘Core Executive’, namely those actors who control the access to all levels of the European arenas and processes and , thus, monopolise the representation of the French Republic at the European level. Throughout the analysis, we will uncover the close relationship between the top civil servants involved in policy-making and the Prince, a relationship that has—under President Macron—become almost symbiotic and which, in turn, reinforces both the President’s authority and the administrative power of those civil servants in the governing of France . The chapter is divided into two main sections: in the first one, we analyse the configuration of the key players who take part in the production process of the French official positions in European negotiations. In the second one, we carefully disentangle each step of the European decision-making process, and analyze the role these French key players have in it.