A kingdom is a closed land, a family domain enlarged by marriages and inheritances. France, since Clovis, since Charlemagne, since Hugh Capet, since Philip Augustus, since Louis XIV, since Napoleon, has borne a universal vocation: to radiate, to civilise, to order the world around an idea larger than herself. Her very geography cries it: a hexagon open upon every sea, a language that conquered the courts of Europe and the hearts of Africa, a history that never knew how to content itself with its borders.
Republican democracy, as it has settled among us since 1870 and above all since 1958, claimed to replace the continuity of a destiny with the intermittent spectacle of elections, and the greatness of a sacred person with the interchangeable mediocrity of parties. The result is before our eyes: a nation that crumbles, a debt that strangles us, a monetary sovereignty abdicated, a diminished army, a slow and partial justice, fouled cities, a youth without bearings.
Three reasons
Why democracy failed
I
Unstable by nature
Since 1789, France has known five republics, two empires, two restored monarchies, a Directory, a Consulate, the Vichy regime and several coups. No other great European country has known such a waltz. The Republic promises stability by the suffrage; it produces fragility by division. Majorities form and dissolve, reforms are voted then repealed, promises evaporate the day after the poll. The people are sovereign only every five years — and even then: between two elections, they have no voice.
II
Corruptible in essence
Republican power has no lasting face. The elected know they will remain only a few years; they govern for their re-election, not for posterity. Lobbies, the press and the moneyed powers always find a door. The political career becomes a profession, and ceases to be a service. Clientelism replaces vision, communication replaces action, the short term eats the long. The State has become a machine for distributing sectional advantages, until the till is empty and the debt is our master.
III
Powerless before History
A democracy does not carry a project longer than a legislature. It does not reconquer monetary sovereignty, does not wage a long war, does not impose a national discipline against the polls. It does not embody unity beyond the cleavages. The president, even elected by universal suffrage, remains a man of the moment, prisoner of his camp. He is not above the parties: he is the chief of the winning party. He is not the father of the Nation: he is the first of the politicians.
Continuity, transcendence, unity
Under Louis XIV, under Napoleon I and under Napoleon III, France knew power, prosperity and radiance. The State was strong because it was personified. Foreign policy was coherent because it served a lasting vision. The great reforms — the Civil Code, the Concordat, the prefectures, the Banque de France, Haussmann's works — were possible because one man, bearing the legitimacy of the anointing or of the imperial plebiscite, could impose a direction against particular interests.
The people choose the Emperor. The Emperor serves the people beyond the ephemeral quarrels.
The Empire is not tyranny. It is the regime in which popular sovereignty expresses itself once and for all in the adhesion to a person and a dynasty, then continues in duration. The Emperor is not the slave of the polls; he is the guardian of the Nation. He has no need to beg for votes every five years; he can think of the generations to come.
Changing the number does not change the machinery. A Sixth Republic would be only the Fifth with more committees. The Emperor we restore is not a planner. He is the guardian of the rule: the border, the money, justice, the single rate. The rest is not his affair — and it is precisely for that reason that it will become yours again.
What the Empire is not
- — It is not a cult of the man. The oath is sworn to the rule, to the nation and to God, not to a portrait.
- — It is not a gilded welfare state. Every subsidy disappears, save that of the farmer for as long as it takes to leave the CAP, so that he may live again by his work.
- — It is not a police of morals. Peterson* has said it: tidy your room first. One does not send the gendarmerie to Mass. One ceases to hunt the crucifix.
- — It is not a dissolution into the world market. Charlie Kirk*, on 1 September 2025: 'God, family, country. In that order.'
- — It is not a Parliament of nine hundred and twenty-five members. The Senate, the Assembly and the CESE disappear. There remains a Council of Empire, charged with the sovereign functions, and with nothing else.
The end of laïcité
The French Empire is Catholic. Not by a committee's decree: by baptism. Clovis at Reims, Notre-Dame, the Concordat of 1801. The Act of 1905 did not pacify the country. It emptied the public square so that others might plant their flags there.
Nobody is forced to Mass. One merely ceases to pretend that France was born in December 1905. Liberty of conscience remains. There is no equality of rank between the nation's baptism and the rest. Charlie Kirk*, on 6 July 2022: 'There is no separation of church and state. It is a fabrication, a fiction. It is not in the Constitution. It is an invention of secular humanists.'
Charles Gave* wrote it otherwise in Un libéral nommé Jésus, in 2005. Liberalism is not atheism. It grew in a Christian civilisation. Without that civilisation, it becomes a market without a people.
Two proofs
Javier Milei*, on 10 December 2023, at his inauguration: 'There is no money. There is no alternative to the adjustment. There is no alternative to the shock.' Annual inflation fell from 211.4 % in 2023 to 31.5 % in 2025, according to INDEC. Poverty, after a peak of 52.9 % in the first half of 2024, fell back to 28.2 % in the second half of 2025 — its lowest level since 2018. The country recorded its first consecutive primary double surplus in nearly twenty years, according to the IMF in May 2026. Growth followed: −1.3 %, then +4.4 %.
Nayib Bukele*, at the Palacio Nacional, on 19 January 2026: El Salvador passed 'from the most dangerous country in the world to the safest in the whole hemisphere'. Homicides fell from 103 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015 to 1.3 in 2025, according to Statista. In volume, murders fell from 6,656 in 2015 to 82 in 2025, according to Associated Press. The method was the state of exception. The gangs were not a social debate: they were the government in fact.
The franc, not the euro
To leave the euro without a rule is only to change masters. The digital franc is a state cryptocurrency on full reserves: the banks no longer create money, seigniorage returns to the citizen, and payments are anonymous by default. The judge may require a proof. The taxman has no key to every loaf.
Zero subsidy
A subsidy is not a help: it is a lying price. The High Commission for Strategy estimated corporate aid, excluding general reliefs, at €112 billion in 2023. The press, the cinema, the trade unions, the 'transition' and the research tax credit close on the day of the Empire. The only exception is the farmer, for as long as it takes to leave the CAP, about €9.3 billion a year. Four years after exit, there is no cheque. He sells. He lives by his trade.
Funded pensions, not a pyramid
Pensions cost €422 billion in 2025, that is 14.1 % of GDP and one public euro in four, according to the Pensions Advisory Council. There remain 1.8 contributors per pensioner. Pensions already in payment are honoured. New contributions feed a personal, inheritable, invested account. Charles Gave*, in June 2026: 'Nobody, ever, has been able to guarantee anyone a certain income in an uncertain world. Whoever says otherwise is a disciple of Madoff.'
Few laws
The general secretariat of the government counted, in 2026, 99,089 articles of statute and 268,000 regulatory texts. The Labour Code has 11,487 articles, 124 % more in twenty-one years. Any rule not renewed within the year dies. There remain the Civil Code, the Penal Code, commerce and the sovereign functions. Hayek* said it: men are guided by general rules, not by particular commands. A law the citizen cannot read is not a law.
The end of the chambers
INSEE and the DGAFP counted, at the end of 2024, 5.85 million public agents. The Assembly has 577 deputies, the Senate 348 seats: more than a billion euros for two chambers that disappear. The CESE, the independent authorities and the ENA as a caste are closed. We keep the army, the police, justice, the tax office and the prefects. The civil-service statute is repealed. The contract is the rule, and it is revocable. The State fits in the hand.
Exit. Plebiscite. Streets.
Brussels is no longer a government. The Agora proposes, the Emperor decides, the people ratify: this is not an Assembly online. Nuclear power comes first. Foreigners flagged S are expelled. Welfare ceases to be an income. Every euro of aid is audited, line by line. The sovereign functions, and nothing else.
France has no choice left
Either she continues to sink into republican mediocrity, debt, division, the loss of identity and submission to outside powers. Or she finds her vocation again: a strong State, a sovereign money, a respected army, a swift justice, a demanding education, a nation proud of its past and turned towards its greatness.
France has never been so great as when she was imperial. She will be saved only if she becomes again what she is in her depths: not a kingdom, but an Empire.
The first round is 11 April 2027. This is not one more election. It is the moment one says that the regime is closed.