Nine campaign promises: what can a president really do?

No text obliges a president to carry out his programme: a campaign programme is not a legal act, and the Constitution entrusts the Government, not the president, with determining and conducting “the policy of the Nation” (article 20). A presidential promise therefore passes through a chain: the Government that signs, the majority that votes, the administration that applies. The book Un président peut-il tenir ses promesses ? [Can a president keep his promises?] (September 2026, in French) follows this chain across nine themes with the same four-zone map. In the executive’s hands: what can be decided without a new statute, by the president, the Prime Minister, a minister or an administrative authority, each within its powers; the president does not personally sign all of these decisions. Must be voted: what goes through the legislative or budget procedure, with its balance of forces, its timescales and its modes of adoption. Must be negotiated or shared: what requires someone else’s consent, whether a university, an industry, a local authority or a European partner. Out of his hands: the actor he does not command, and on whom the result still depends. These zones are not watertight boxes: they follow on from one another and overlap, and an act in the first can still require a negotiation, then run into someone who decides for themselves. Hence the reading rule: start with the last zone. Begin with the announced result: who must act for it to happen, and which of those actors is beyond the reach of the one who promises? Then work back up the chain to the first act the executive can actually decide. The table of the nine promises sums up the map, theme by theme. The map does not say whether a promise is desirable; it says what is feasible, by whom, and in how much time.

Health: can a president bring a doctor back?

The first zone exists, but the pen usually belongs to the director general of the regional health agency: he is the one who sets, every two years, the zones where the provision of care is insufficient (Public Health Code, article L. 1434-4). Regulating where doctors set up practice requires a statute: passed by the National Assembly on 7 May 2025, a private member’s bill made setting up subject to authorisation; on 27 May 2026, the Senate committee turned it into an obligation to practise part-time in an under-served zone. Training targets are shared with the universities. That leaves the practitioner, free to set up or not, and the clock of the curriculum: a student who starts in 2027 will practise around 2037.

The page Can a campaign promise produce results within five years? details this clock and who sets the number of students admitted; it does not deal with the regulation of where doctors set up.

Wages: can a president get your pay raised?

A promise to raise private-sector wages requires an employer to pay more. The executive directly sets only a floor, the Smic, France’s minimum wage, which already rises without it through a statutory formula. The crux lies at one level: almost all its instruments act between the wage and the bank account, on disposable income, not on the amount at the top of the pay slip.

What he decides. The Government can raise the Smic by decree beyond what the formula produces (article L3231-10 of the Labour Code): this is the “coup de pouce”, the last of which dates from 1 July 2012 according to the 2025 report of the group of experts on the Smic. It can also bring forward an automatic uprating, as on 1 November 2024: the decision then concerned the date, not the amount. The schedule of the prime d’activité (in-work benefit) is set by decree (article L842-3 of the Social Security Code), as is the rate of old-age insurance contributions (article L241-3 of the same code). Finally, an order of the minister responsible for labour can make an industry-wide pay scale binding on the whole industry (article L2261-15 of the Labour Code).

What he must get voted. The existence and base of contributions fall to statute law, as do the prime d’activité itself and the income tax schedule, set each year by the budget act. So does a general indexation of wages to inflation: article 34 of the Constitution reserves to statute law the fundamental principles of labour law. It must therefore go through the legislative procedure, with its balance of forces and its timescales.

What he must negotiate. Above the floor, industry minimum wages arise from a negotiation: to be extended, an agreement must have been negotiated and concluded in a joint committee (article L2261-19 of the Labour Code). The minister can initiate the extension (article L2261-24), exclude from it clauses contrary to the law or refuse it on grounds of general interest (article L2261-25), without being able to write different content in place of the social partners. He can also initiate the merger of industries whose bargaining activity is too weak (articles L2261-32 to L2261-34). He acts on the framework that negotiates, not on what the pay scale says.

What does not depend on him. The wage above the floor remains set by the employer or by the industry pay scale. Where a rise is absorbed cannot be decreed: margins, prices, productivity, employment, hours, or the public budget if the State compensates; which one dominates is measured afterwards. And these outcomes are not equivalent for the employee: through employment or hours, the counterpart appears on no pay slip. And the purchasing power of this income also depends on prices that the executive does not set.

What the book adds. The chapter separates three quantities that the formula “making work pay more” conflates: the wage, disposable income, purchasing power. It follows a written promise that joins two instruments in one line, a monthly Smic raised to 1,600 euros net and the indexation of wages to inflation: the first half goes through a decree, the second through a statute whose programme states neither the timetable nor the majority. It locates the break in two places. The decree sets the starting wage when the promise speaks of the net wage, which has passed through the level of compulsory levies. And the decided part of an amount is the gap above what the formula would have produced on its own, impossible to calculate in advance: six weeks before 1 January 2026, the group of experts on the Smic announced an uprating “of the order of 1.4%”; the decree of 17 December 2025 applied 1.18. It also shows the slope of contribution relief: under the regime in force in spring 2025, according to the 2025 report of the same group, 242 euros of additional cost to the employer between one and 1.6 times the Smic produced 100 euros of net wage and 60 euros of disposable income. It closes on four questions, in this order: which level the promise speaks of, through which vehicle, compared with what and measured when, who absorbs.

Prices: can a president bring down what you pay?

A promise to bring prices down most often requires returning to those of before: it targets a level, whereas inflation measures a pace. Between 2021 and 2025, consumer prices rose by about 14% (cumulative figure reconstructed by the book from Insee data), and no lever of the executive brings the whole basket back to its 2021 level. On energy, which the book follows, the crux is twofold: the same tax changes master depending on the product, and a cut that has been decided must still reach the price paid.

What he decides. The Government can institute by decree a rebate on the displayed price: the 2022 one (decree no. 2022-423 of 25 March 2022) showed at the pump within a week, according to the Court of Audit (Cour des comptes, March 2024), but it is the State that pays, not the underlying price that falls. It can freeze prices on grounds of crisis, for six months at most, by decree in the Conseil d’État (article L. 410-2 of the Commercial Code), and adjust the excise duty by order if a budget act has empowered it to. On the regulated electricity tariff, proposed by the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE), ministers can only object within three months (article L. 337-4 of the Energy Code): prevent, not write.

What he must get voted. VAT and the level of the excise duty are set in the budget act, with a majority. The European list of reduced rates (Annex III of Council Directive (EU) 2022/542 of 5 April 2022) allows a reduced rate on electricity with no end date, and on gas until 1 January 2030. Since the regulated tariff is calculated excluding taxes, going from 20 to 5.5% would remove about 12% of the typical bill, 130 euros a year out of 1,072 on 1 August 2026 (the book’s calculation on the bill published by the CRE in July 2026), if nothing else moves.

What he must negotiate. A reduced rate on motor fuels and heating oil complies with Union law only if the European list includes them, and it can only be amended by unanimity in the Council (article 113 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union). Its last revision took four years and two months, and it phases out reduced rates on fossil fuels by 1 January 2030 at the latest. A Parliament can vote the rate without waiting, as Spain and Poland did in March 2026; it then loses the legal certainty of what it has voted.

What does not depend on him. Wholesale prices, the price negotiated on the shelf and the level already reached. The pass-through of a tax cut depends on sellers, competition and market structure: after the 2009 VAT cut in restaurants, prices fell by about 2% where full pass-through would have given nearly 10% (Insee, 2014).

What the book adds. The chapter follows a written and dated promise, to bring VAT on the four energy products down from 20 to 5.5%, and shows that the law makes three promises of it: one immediate, one with a deadline, one whose compliance depends on twenty-seven capitals, where the motor fuel that opens its wording falls. It rereads the National Assembly vote of 20 November 2025, which rejects the whole promise and adopts only a fragment, and establishes that the national excise duty offered a lever that could be pulled more directly. It leaves four questions: which price, through which instrument, who still has to say yes, how much gets through and who bears the loss.

Schools: can a president change schools faster than a generation of pupils?

The first zone is fullest here: curricula are set by ministerial order, the organisation of lower secondary school (collège) by decree of the Prime Minister, as the Conseil d’État held when it annulled for lack of competence the order creating the groups in the first two years of collège (decision no. 493513 of 28 November 2024). Posts and pay rises are voted again each year in the budget act; teacher training is shared with the universities. The rest escapes: the candidate who does not sit the competitive examination, the teacher in the classroom, the family, the birth rate of yesterday, which would remove 125,400 pupils from primary education from the start of the 2026 school year according to the projections of the Depp (the education ministry’s statistical service) of April 2026. Almost everything is decided quickly here; almost nothing is proven within the time of a term.

The page Le niveau des élèves baisse-t-il ? [Are pupils’ attainment levels falling?] (in French) sets PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS against one another; it deals with the finding, not with the president’s powers.

Jobs: can a president get people hired?

A jobs promise requires hires to be added to those that would have taken place without it. Yet private-sector salaried hiring bears an employer’s signature, and no public act signs in its place. That is where the crux lies: the State largely regulates the conditions of hiring, it does not sign the contract, and it will still have to prove that a quantified result is due to it.

What he decides. The Government regulates by decree the price of labour near the Smic: decree no. 2025-887 of 4 September 2025 recasts, from 1 January 2026, the reductions and exemptions of employer contributions applicable at that level. Hiring subsidies for an apprentice are also set by decree, and their schedule has changed three times in three years, twice through decrees no. 2025-174 of 22 February 2025 and no. 2026-168 of 6 March 2026. Sanctions on jobseekers fall under decree no. 2025-478 of 30 May 2025, against which the Conseil d’État rejected the appeals in September 2026. If the negotiation on unemployment insurance fails, a so-called “default” decree (décret de carence) sets the rule as a last resort. Each of these acts applies from the date it sets, and none signs a contract.

What he must get voted. The structure of contribution relief goes each year through the social security financing act, and the budgets for subsidies through the budget act. Contract and dismissal law falls to statute law or ordinances. Support for jobseekers rests on the 2023 “full employment” act, rolled out in waves: since January 2025, recipients of the RSA (the minimum income), among other groups, have been registered automatically with France Travail, the public employment service. An overhaul of the Labour Code requires a statute, and therefore a majority.

What he must negotiate. The rules on unemployment benefits do not come from Parliament: an agreement of the social partners sets them, which the State frames and then approves. The agreement of 15 November 2024 runs until 31 December 2028, and two amendments had already modified it by mid-2026, including amendment no. 2, approved by order of 19 June 2026. An industry agreement can be made binding by order of the minister responsible for labour, after a reasoned opinion of the National Commission for Collective Bargaining, Employment and Vocational Training (Labour Code, article L. 2261-15): extending is not writing. Where the organisations persistently fail to act, the minister can make binding in a sector an agreement already extended elsewhere, unless a majority of that commission objects in writing with reasons (article L. 2261-17); he then sets the framework of an entire sector, never a hire. The region is responsible for regional policy on access to vocational training for young people and adults seeking work, without prejudice to the powers of the State (article L. 6121-1), and operators as well as the social partners take part in it.

What does not depend on him. The signature belongs to the employer. The Constitutional Council held in 1988 that the employer, “being responsible for the business, must consequently be able to choose his collaborators” (our translation; decision no. 88-244 DC of 20 July 1988, recital 22), without making it an unlimited freedom. The candidate accepts the post, or turns it down. The economic cycle weighs on the total: according to the OFCE, net job creation fell from about 170,000 in 2024 to some 16,000 in 2025. The demography of the workforce, already largely written, and the matching of posts and jobseekers, which coincide neither by occupation nor by place, also escape decrees.

What the book adds. The chapter follows a written promise for 2027, in the conditional in its very text: a reform of unemployment insurance “that encourages work and that would create 100,000 additional jobs” (our translation). It shows where it breaks: between “returning to work faster” and “extra jobs” lie two links, that a post exists and that an employer signs. The evaluation of the revamped support for RSA recipients in eighteen areas (Dares and the Institut des politiques publiques, June 2026) provides the test: participants’ probability of salaried employment rises by about 3.2 percentage points in the year after entry, and nearly two thirds of their additional lasting employment comes through subsidised contracts; across all recipients in the areas, the net effect can no longer be distinguished, the participants’ gains being offset by side effects on other recipients. The precedent of the CICE (a tax credit for competitiveness and employment), about 100,000 jobs for a cost of the order of 18 billion euros in 2016 according to the France Stratégie evaluation published in 2020, shows that at this scale the uncertainty of attribution can become of the same order as the estimated effect; that of the apprenticeship bonus, that an attributable volume remains below the volume announced. The chapter also examines a job-guarantee promise, then asks four questions in this order: the counter and the horizon, the exact rule and who must consent to it, the claimed channel with its proof, the judge’s method.

Security: can a president make the country safer?

Police officers, gendarmes, judges and prisons belong to the State: security seems the field where it is most at home. Yet a promise to make the country safer requires three distinct things: changing the rule, getting the criminal justice chain to produce, bringing crime down. The crux lies in the middle of the chain, with a judge the State employs without commanding, and at its end, in behaviour that no public act commands.

What he decides. The executive sets the doctrine and deployment of the forces: the national police “comes under the authority of the minister of the interior” (our translation; Internal Security Code, art. L. 411-1), and the prefect directs police and gendarmerie for public order (art. L. 122-1). The Minister of Justice addresses general instructions to the public prosecution service, but “no instruction in individual cases” (our translation; Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 30). These levers start quickly, with officers who take a long time to train: twenty-four months of training for a police constable (gardien de la paix) (order of 2 May 2022, art. 1).

What he must get voted. The scale of penalties falls to statute law: the minimum sentences for repeat offenders, created by Law no. 2007-1198 of 10 August 2007, were repealed by article 7 of Law no. 2014-896 of 15 August 2014. Appropriations, posts and places go through the budget act and through two programming acts that expire in 2027: the one for the interior (Law no. 2023-22 of 24 January 2023), which raises the ministry’s appropriations from about 20.8 billion euros in 2022 to 25.4 billion in 2027, and the one for justice (Law no. 2023-1059 of 20 November 2023), which programmes 1,500 additional judges.

What he must share, without being able to command it. The executive organises the means of the justice system, but the sitting judge rules independently: paid by the State, the judge cannot be removed (Constitution, art. 64) and receives no new posting without his consent (Ordinance no. 58-1270, art. 4); he is the one who individualises each sentence. Adjustments of sentences are decided “by order or reasoned judgment” (our translation) of the sentence enforcement judge (Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 712-4). Building prisons goes through land, local authorities and the administrative courts.

What does not depend on him. The potential offender whom the penalty is meant to deter, and reoffending, which has no timetable. The measurement itself depends on a private choice: in 2023, according to the victimisation survey of the SSMSI, the statistical service of the Ministry of the Interior (2024 edition), a little more than one victim of a completed burglary in two filed a complaint, and one in six for a bicycle theft. More complaints can push the recorded figure up while the phenomenon falls.

What the book adds. The chapter follows a promise to reinstate minimum sentences over a complete cycle: voted in 2007, applied, evaluated, repealed in 2014, promised again. The rule got past the judge: in 2010, judges departed from the minimum six times out of ten, according to the statistical service of the Ministry of Justice (Infostat Justice no. 118, 2012), which nevertheless puts at 11,701 years of prison without suspension, by counterfactual projection, the increase in sentences from 2008 to 2010. Behaviour followed little: according to the Institut des politiques publiques (note no. 105, 2024), “the law had no deterrent effect in the short term” (our translation); in the medium term, those subject to it commit fewer of the offences targeted by the law, without their probability of committing other offences changing, which the IPP reads as learning the letter of the text, not general deterrence. The promise breaks there, between the penalty and behaviour. It ends on three questions, in order: at which level the promise acts (the rule, the machine, behaviour), which thermometer will judge it, what the evaluation of the same instrument says.

Debt: can a president finance a pension promise?

For a promise of a return to retirement at sixty on a full pension, the first zone is almost empty: a rate of old-age contribution, which the law refers to decree (Social Security Code, article L. 241-3), raised in this way in 2024 and 2026. Changing the age requires a vote; the 2023 reform and its suspension (Law no. 2025-1403 of 30 December 2025, article 105) went through a social security financing act. Supplementary pension schemes are negotiated between the social partners. What escapes are the assumptions of any trajectory, actual retirements, the wage bill and the price at which lenders lend. Yet a cost is judged against a dated trajectory, and the Court of Audit noted in June 2026 that the Government’s dated back to January 2025.

The page Why does public debt rise? breaks down the rise in the debt; it describes the legacy, not presidential power.

Immigration: what can a president decide alone?

A promise of deportations does not require decisions to be taken: in France, in 2024, according to Eurostat, 128,740 third-country nationals were subject to such a decision, more than a quarter of the Union total. It requires more of these decisions to lead to an actual removal. That is the crux: ordering is not removing, and between the two stand capacities, a judge and, in some cases, the signature of another State.

What he decides. The executive can give prefects, by circular, instructions on applying the existing framework, that of article L. 611-1 of the Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreigners and the Right of Asylum, under which the administrative authority “may” oblige a foreign national to leave the territory. It also decides on placement in administrative detention, with immediate effect, but within the limit of existing places: about two thousand, according to a scrutiny note of the National Assembly’s law committee of June 2025.

What he must get voted. Places go through the budget, and their lead time cannot be compressed: the target of three thousand, first set for 2027, is pushed back to 2029 by the documents of the 2026 budget. The maximum length of detention, the conditions of removal and criminal offences fall to statute law. The bill still has to reach the agenda: of thirty-eight private members’ bills on immigration identified by the book between summer 2024 and the end of August 2026, thirty went no further than referral to committee; the two that became law are the only ones on which the Government had triggered the accelerated procedure.

What he must negotiate. Without a recognised travel document, removal requires a consular travel document (laissez-passer) that only the country of origin issues, “an expression of a State’s sovereignty” (our translation) according to the same note. Against a refusal, France retains the refusal of visas under article 47 of the law of 26 January 2024, a lever of negotiation and not a power to compel; the conditioning of development aid, provided for in the same article, fell, as unrelated to the bill, before decision no. 2023-863 DC of the Constitutional Council. The Franco-Algerian agreement of 27 December 1968 cannot be modified by one side. The obligation to decide also comes from the Union: article 6 of Directive 2008/115/EC in principle requires a return decision against any third-country national staying illegally, subject to the exceptions set out in its paragraphs 2 to 5.

What does not depend on him. The administrative courts annulled 18% of the obligations to leave French territory brought before them in 2022, according to the Court of Audit (report of January 2024). The ordinary courts step in when the administration wants to extend detention: between 2018 and 2022, according to the same report, 58% of releases before removal resulted from their decisions, “often because of a deadlock in the issuing of consular travel documents” (our translation), against 6% for the administrative courts and 32% for the prefectures. That leaves the person, who must be found, and their cooperation in establishing their identity.

What the book adds. The chapter follows a private member’s bill of 15 October 2024 “aimed at facilitating and accelerating the expulsion” (our translation) of foreign nationals under an obligation to leave the territory: it stops in committee without examination and, assuming it were passed, would break at the last signature, which is not French for cases without a travel document. It shows that the figure to be judged is not unique: Eurostat, the Ministry of the Interior and the annual report to Parliament publish three series with different scopes. Hence four questions, in order: which number, which scope, what to do when the foreign signature does not come, how many places and by when.

Climate: can a president keep a climate promise?

The course is set in statute law: reducing emissions by 40% between 1990 and 2030 and reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 (Energy Code, article L. 100-4); changing it requires a vote. Carbon budgets are set by decree (Environmental Code, article L. 222-1 A): the latest decree, of 16 July 2026, bears the signature of the Prime Minister, not that of the president. European law sets a different target, with a different scope and reference year: for the sectors covered by Regulation (EU) 2023/857, a 47.5% cut relative to 2005 instead of 37%, which cannot be lowered in Paris. What escapes are the sectors that emit, imported emissions and the forest sink. The power to set the trajectory is concentrated; the power to produce it is dispersed.

The page Enseigner l’empreinte carbone en SES [Teaching the carbon footprint in economics and social sciences] (in French) shows why French emissions and the carbon footprint give two totals, a choice of counter that a climate promise must settle; it does not deal with the president’s powers.

The table of the nine promises

One row per theme, the four zones in columns. Each cell summarises the corresponding section above; the full demonstration, with the written promise, is in the book’s chapter.

Read by column, the table shows that the nine promises do not run into the same obstacle: wages, prices and jobs depend mainly on decentralised economic decisions; health and schools, on training and observation lead times; security and immigration, on judges’ decisions and enforcement capacity; debt and climate, on long trajectories and shared commitments.

What this page does not say

It summarises, theme by theme, what the book establishes: it does not repeat the examination of promises already made, with figures and votes, which forms the core of each chapter. It assesses no candidate, gives no voting advice and does not say whether a promise is desirable. The law cited is the law the book read in its version in force in summer 2026; a later statute or decree may shift a boundary between the zones.

Following each promise to the point where the power to decide is no longer enough Un président peut-il tenir ses promesses ?, the author's book, in French: contents, excerpts and reviews →

Frequently asked questions

Sources

The texts cited are those that the book Un président peut-il tenir ses promesses ? (Stéphane Lalut, September 2026, in French) read in their version in force in summer 2026; its source apparatus, chapter by chapter, gives for each one the version consulted and the studies cited. Quotations from French texts are our translation.

• Overall: Constitution of 4 October 1958, articles 20, 34 and 64.
• Health: Public Health Code, article L. 1434-4.
• Wages: Labour Code, articles L3231-1 to L3231-12, L2261-15, L2261-19, L2261-24, L2261-25, L2261-32 to L2261-34; Social Security Code, articles L842-3 and L241-3; decree no. 2025-1228 of 17 December 2025; Group of experts on the Smic, 2025 report.
• Prices: decree no. 2022-423 of 25 March 2022; Commercial Code, article L. 410-2; Energy Code, article L. 337-4; Council Directive (EU) 2022/542 of 5 April 2022, Annex III; Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, article 113; Court of Audit, March 2024; Insee, working paper no. F1404, June 2014.
• Schools: Conseil d’État, decision no. 493513 of 28 November 2024; Depp, Note d’information no. 26.09, April 2026.
• Jobs: decrees no. 2025-887 of 4 September 2025, no. 2025-174 of 22 February 2025, no. 2026-168 of 6 March 2026 and no. 2025-478 of 30 May 2025; unemployment insurance agreement of 15 November 2024 and order of 19 June 2026; Labour Code, articles L. 2261-15, L. 2261-17 and L. 6121-1; Constitutional Council, decision no. 88-244 DC of 20 July 1988; Dares and Institut des politiques publiques, June 2026; France Stratégie, evaluation of the CICE, 2020.
• Security: Internal Security Code, articles L. 411-1 and L. 122-1; Code of Criminal Procedure, articles 30 and 712-4; order of 2 May 2022; Laws no. 2007-1198 of 10 August 2007, no. 2014-896 of 15 August 2014 (article 7), no. 2023-22 of 24 January 2023 and no. 2023-1059 of 20 November 2023; Ordinance no. 58-1270 of 22 December 1958, article 4; SSMSI, victimisation survey, 2024 edition; Infostat Justice no. 118, 2012; Institut des politiques publiques, note no. 105, 2024.
• Debt (pensions): Social Security Code, article L. 241-3; Law no. 2025-1403 of 30 December 2025, article 105.
• Immigration: Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreigners and the Right of Asylum, article L. 611-1; Directive 2008/115/EC, article 6; Law of 26 January 2024 to control immigration and improve integration, article 47; Constitutional Council, decision no. 2023-863 DC of 25 January 2024; Franco-Algerian agreement of 27 December 1968; Eurostat, migr_eiord; National Assembly, law committee, June 2025; Court of Audit, January 2024.
• Climate: Energy Code, article L. 100-4; Environmental Code, article L. 222-1 A; decree no. 2026-636 of 16 July 2026; Regulation (EU) 2023/857, Annex I.

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