For months, European leaders and NATO officials have warned of a sharp rise in Russian hybrid threats, and French President Emmanuel Macron has been among the most vocal. But online, a different narrative is gaining traction: that Macron is exaggerating the danger to justify a war with Russia, cancel or postpone the 2027 presidential election, and cling to power.
These claims, circulating widely on social media, have been fueled by a meeting Macron held in mid-September with party leaders and presidential hopefuls to brief them on security challenges. Yet constitutional experts say the scenario is legally unworkable.
War powers are not the president's alone
The French constitution does not allow the president to unilaterally declare war. Guillaume Tusseau, a constitutional law professor at Sciences Po Law School, told The Cube that while the president is head of the armed forces, he must share that power with the government. "The army is placed at the disposal of the government, not the president," he said.
Article 35 of the constitution requires that any armed intervention be authorized by parliament, and the government must present the case to lawmakers. "So it's not a decision the president can formally make alone," Tusseau added. If a president launched a war without consultation, that would be a constitutional violation and could trigger impeachment proceedings.
Even in the event of a direct attack on France, the constitution does not automatically postpone elections. The electoral timeline is set out in Article 7: the vote must take place between 20 and 35 days before the end of the current president's term. "The postponement of elections is not automatic at all," Tusseau said. "Nothing in the constitution allows the president to postpone them for the reasons claimed on social media."
Article 16: a misunderstood emergency clause
Some proponents of the theory point to Article 16, which grants exceptional powers to the president in times of grave crisis. But the threshold for invoking it is extremely high, and it requires consultation with the prime minister, the presidents of both parliamentary chambers, and the Constitutional Council.
Baptiste Charvin, a constitutional lawyer who has studied disinformation, noted that Article 16 has been invoked only once in the Fifth Republic, by Charles de Gaulle in 1961 during the Algiers putsch. "The article seems to give rise to several misconceptions," he said. "It is mainly used to attack the executive, which is often accused of harbouring dictatorial ambitions."
Charvin stressed that a "very high threshold of public calamity" must be reached, a condition added by constitutional amendment to prevent abuse. Moreover, even if Article 16 were activated, the president can only take legislative and administrative measures, not constitutional ones. "The philosophy of the device is that the president must protect constitutional values, not amend the constitution," Tusseau explained.
Macron cannot run for a third consecutive term in 2027, which some see as a motive for such a drastic move. But as experts point out, the legal and political obstacles are insurmountable. The constitution simply does not provide a mechanism for a president to stay in power by manufacturing a war.
As Europe faces real security challenges, including Russian strikes on Kyiv and sabotage in Estonia, the focus should remain on genuine threats rather than speculative conspiracy theories.
