René Chapus, l’Europe et la Nation : les opinions d’un positiviste

Abstract

René Chapus was one of the leading authors of administrative law in France in the second half of the twentieth century. He embodied a style specific to the discipline and the era, described as positivist, neutral and technical, which Professor Fabrice Melleray has described as « a contemporary French way of studying administrative law ». However, a look at the author's writings on Europe shows another side of Chapus' work, inclined to break out of his tight reasoning to express sharp opinions. Is this a sign of a hidden nationalism underlying his presentation of the law? The study of this feature of the author's discourse allows us to see how the ordering of positive law, for which Chapus was admired, cannot be neutral. Opinion does not exist alongside conceptual work or reason. On the contrary, behind any construction - since it is a construction - lies a certain vision of law and society. In this case, it was specific to the post-war state, which Europeanisation has replaced by another legitimising rationality for public action.