Thanks for sharing. I learned something too. What’s interesting to me is that, at least in America, we associate the judicial as government because we consider ourselves a “land of law” and the judicial has the responsibility of determining if the laws that “govern” how we can act have been used appropriately or if they violate our constitutional rights. As a French citizen, do you not feel governed by the laws which your courts oversee? Maybe this is purely a difference in language but it’s very fascinating to me.
I would have trouble talking about the difference between American and French views of the law, or even speaking for all French people for that matter.
What I can say is that personally, I definitely think I live in a country ruled by law. However separation of powers means there is no single entity exercising total control on this law: the executive branch proposes changes to the law, the legislative ratifies these changes (or not), and the judiciary branch is an arbiter of what happens when the existing law meets real life situations. While the limits between the executive and legislative branches can sometimes feel porous (especially when executive and legislative are controlled by a single political party, as is the case in both France and USA at the moment), the judiciary branch always felt more insular to me from the two others, at least in my country.
Another linguistic nuance to think about: in French, we are "ruled by law " but not "governed by law". In French, "gouverner" (to govern) is something that people do, not laws.
This is a bit of a brain dump, sorry. I wish I would have more definitive answers for you.
In the US right now, the legislative branch is actually split between the two major parties- the Republicans control the Senate, but the Democrats control the House of Representatives. Any new laws have to be approved by both sides of the legislature.
As a side note the French equivalent of "land of law" is "État de droit" (i.e. "State of law").
The difference here being that Americans perhaps prefer to refer to their country as land (in this case "of law", but on other occasions, "of opportunity", "of the free" and so on...) whereas the French would rather embrace the idea of the (welfare) state.
The former's legal system is one of common law (precedent based) whereas the latter is one of civil law (statute based).
Regardless -- the judicial in France has that same responsibility of ensuring the governing laws conform with the constitutional rights (via the Conseil Constitutionnel)
The difference though with the word government/gouvernement is probably, I agree, only one in language. Or what we would call in French "faux amis", or in English, "false friends" :)
I'm American too (and not the French person you were responding to). IMO it's just an accidental quirk of language. Laws are just as important in other developed nations too.
