Emmanuel Macron’s refusal on Monday, August 26, to appoint the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) alliance’s candidate as prime minister has prompted the radical left member of the coalition, La France Insoumise (LFI), to announce that it would submit a motion to remove the French president from office.

But how exactly does this impeachment procedure work and what would be its chances of success?

What does the text say?

Article 68 of the French Constitution outlines the process for the early termination of the president’s mandate “in the event of a breach of duty manifestly incompatible with the exercise of his mandate.” Before a 2007 reform of the Constitution, the grounds for early termination of the president’s term were “high treason”. The current wording, which remains vague, was designed for “very serious acts,” such as a refusal to promulgate laws.

What steps need to be followed?

The procedure leading to impeachment is long and thorny. Members of parliament, whether senators or MPs, wishing to use it must first create a motion for a resolution, which should set out “the grounds likely to characterize a failure within the meaning of the first paragraph of Article 68 of the Constitution,” in the words of the organic law. They must then collect the signatures of at least one-tenth of the members of either of the chambers of parliament (i.e. 58 MPs or 35 senators) to initiate the process. The LFI group, which has 72 MPs in the Assemblée Nationale, could therefore meet this first condition.

But the second step is trickier: the bureau of the concerned chamber must check if the motion for resolution is admissible. In 2016, the attempt by conservative Les Républicains MPs to end former president François Hollande’s term failed to pass this hurdle. Currently, LFI does not have a majority in the bureau of the Assemblée Nationale. Even though the NFP has a majority on this board, the other political parties in the left-wing coalition, notably the Socialists, have so far steered clear of this impeachment proposal.

It is then up to the Law Commission to issue an opinion. If it validates the proposal, the chamber in question must adopt it by a two-thirds majority within a fortnight. This is a threshold that neither LFI nor the entire NFP parties can reach on their own.

The draft resolution’s journey doesn’t end there: it is then forwarded to the other chamber, which must go through the same steps − consulting the law commission and voting within a fortnight. In the current case, this is virtually impossible, as the left is far from holding a majority of seats in the Sénat, and LFI has no elected representatives there.

Under the procedure laid down in Article 68, if the two chambers of parliament adopt the resolution, the “Parliament constituted as a High Court,” in other words, all the MPs and senators, must then be convened. Eleven MPs and 11 senators are appointed by the bureaus of their respective chambers to form the bureau of the High Court and “organize its work.” A commission made up of six vice presidents of the Assemblée Nationale and six vice presidents of the Sénat will gather “all necessary information” to investigate the impeachment request, with the powers of a commission of inquiry, and the possibility of hearing the head of state. It is then to submit its report to the parliamentary High Court within two weeks.

At the end of the debates, which are public, the High Court can declare the head of state impeached, but here again, a two-thirds majority vote is required, i.e. 617 out of 925 members of Parliament. This requires a broad consensus across the political spectrum, a condition far from being currently met.