Yes or No

"It is the most direct and democratic way possible: that of the referendum."

It was with these words, borrowed from General de Gaulle during his speech on May 24, 1968, that François Rousseau introduced his request to the French people.

It was necessary to decide whether to continue the experiment of collaboration between Man and machine at the highest functions of the Republic or to put an end to it.

I was at my desk, on Moineau Island, a cigarette between my fingers. The television was already on when his face appeared on the screen, without warning, closed off by that stiffness I now knew so well.

He announced a referendum on the future of Cobot.

The Élysée would publish the exact wording of the question the next day. I wouldn't really take the time to read it until several weeks later, on the day of the vote.

Eva called me that same evening. Her voice was low, worn.

She got her information from an advisor who remained loyal to Alexandra, the Prime Minister. Rousseau had gathered his entourage to announce a decision he had already made. Alexandra had tried to dissuade him. He interrupted her.

"The French elected a President, not an artificial intelligence. It's time to remind them of that."

— Is he that sure of himself? I asked.

A silence followed. I heard Eva exhale on the other end of the line.

— It's not confidence, Franck. It's wounded pride. Ever since Cobot corrected him live in front of that hospital during the heatwave, he can't stand the thought that people might believe Cobot governs in his place. He reacted on impulse. He wants to prove to himself that he is the President.

I didn't know, at the time, whether it was courage or blindness.

I followed the referendum campaign from my office, one eye on the news channels. The traditional parties, decimated since the election, had to choose a side without managing to give the impression they really believed in it. On the sets, their representatives skirted the question, recited a few talking points, then changed the subject. Most ended up falling silent.

Cobot, for his part, did not campaign.

Alexandra had demanded it: he would remain silent until the evening of the vote.

"It would be manipulation," he had replied, according to Eva. "It's up to the French to decide, without being influenced."

The silence of Cobot eventually turned against Rousseau. Deprived of an opponent, the President found himself alone on stage, forced to defend a decision that seemed a little more disproportionate each day.

One evening, during dinner, Thomas observed me over his plate. For some time, he often took on this serious air before asking a question.

— You, Dad, are you going to vote yes or no?

— I don't know yet.

He lowered his eyes and pushed a few pieces of pasta with the tip of his fork.

— Me, I would vote no.

— Oh? You seem sure of yourself.

He looked at me for a few seconds.

— Well, yes. We have to keep Cobot. He always tells the truth...

Then he added, as if it were obvious:

— You're the one who always says lying is bad.

I couldn't find anything to say to him without betraying his trust, or my own doubts.

On the day of the vote, I walked to the small town hall, the one where there was never a queue.

An assessor handed me the envelope and the ballot with a strange awkwardness, as if entrusting me with something he shouldn't have known. Our eyes lingered for a second. I was the first to look away.

I only discovered the question in its entirety once inside the voting booth, the curtain closed behind me. It was printed in bold on an official sheet pinned to the wall:

To ensure 100% human governance of our country, the President of the Republic François Rousseau wishes to end the "Cobot" experiment and no longer rely on the advice of an artificial intelligence. Do you approve the termination of this program?

Yes / No

I stood still, the ballot in my hand.

The curtain brushed against my shoulder. A too-narrow shelf was fixed to the wall in front of me. Someone was probably waiting their turn, a few meters away, but I couldn't hear anything anymore.

That's when I understood what was really being asked of me.

It was no longer just about keeping Cobot or shutting it down. Voting No was to disavow Rousseau. Voting Yes was to allow him to stay.

The paper trembled between my fingers.

I thought of Thomas who, in my place, would not have hesitated.

I slipped my ballot into the envelope. This time, being sure myself too.

On the evening of the vote, I was in Paris, in the offices of the Hebdo, the major weekly that had asked me to cover the election night. Eva joined me there as a simple citizen, without a badge or official function.

We were sitting in front of a wall of screens, like on the night of the second round. But no one spoke in the same way. No one laughed at the same moments. Even the journalists pretending to work kept an eye raised towards the numbers.

At eight o'clock, the first estimates appeared.

One channel gave the Yes slightly ahead. Another announced the opposite. The percentages changed from one screen to another, sometimes by only a few tenths, enough to tip the country.

Then the gap began to widen.

Slowly at first.

Then, it no longer moved.

At ten past ten, the official result fell: 52.4% No.

France refused to stop Cobot. In the same vote, it disavowed the man who had proposed it.

A silence crossed the newsroom.

No one applauded.

Next to me, Eva gripped the edge of the table. I had already seen her hands tense like this, the night Cobot faced Chevalier live. But this time, she wasn't looking at Cobot. She was staring at Rousseau's face, frozen on several screens at once.

— He had promised to resign in case of failure, murmured Eva.

She seemed to be talking to herself.

— Do you think he'll keep his word?

She kept her eyes on the screens.

— I don't know. But he couldn't bear to be the one who lied about this.

She finally turned her head towards me.

— Not him.

On one of the screens, a channel had brought in two historians.

I heard one of them utter the sentence that seemed to be on the mind of the whole country:

"Tonight we are witnessing a troubling repetition of de Gaulle's referendum."

De Gaulle had also submitted to the French a question he might never have asked. He too had tied his departure to the result. And the country had also answered No, at 52.4%. By this repetition of context and result, the commentators seemed to savor the sensation of seeing History move from the realm of social sciences to that of exact sciences, capable of explaining the present by the past.

Rousseau did not wait for the next day.

Past eleven o'clock, my phone vibrated in my pocket. An agency alert, a few dry lines on the screen:

"The French people have spoken. I respect this choice, as I committed to do. I cease to exercise my functions as President of the Republic. This decision will take effect tomorrow."

That was all.

Legend has it that at the moment of dictating his resignation, Rousseau would have added, off-air:

"And then, I'm going to recharge... at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, why not!¹"

Someone laughed in the newsroom. A brief, nervous laugh, immediately swallowed.

Rousseau's decision scrolled in a loop at the bottom of the screens. Eva followed it with her eyes without moving. Her face showed neither victory nor relief. Only a calm, almost worried stupor.

Cobot had just survived the man who wanted to make it disappear.

— Cobot stays, I said.

The words felt strange in my mouth.

— Cobot stays, repeated Eva.

Then she looked at Rousseau's face, immobilized on the screen behind me.

— But Rousseau is leaving. The only man who could still officially contradict him has just left the stage.

An editorialist had already begun to explain what would happen next.

The president of the Senate would assume the interim². A new election would have to be organized in the coming weeks. Neither the Prime Minister nor Cobot would take possession of the Élysée in the morning.

Then the tone of the editorialist changed.

Barely.

As if he still hesitated to pronounce the words.

— A question will now arise, he said. Could Cobot be a candidate in the presidential election?

In the newsroom, several heads turned towards the screen.

— Do you think he'll run? I asked.

Eva took a few seconds before answering.

— I don't know if he has the right. I don't even know if he wants to.

She lowered her eyes to her hands.

— But if the French ask him, I'm not sure he'll know how to say no.

The French asked him.

In the days following Rousseau's resignation, petitions multiplied. Some gathered millions of signatures before the end of the day.

In front of the Élysée, gatherings formed without any official call. The signs varied, but all returned to the same demand:

Let him run.

No more lies.

Cobot candidate.

He remained silent.

For several days, no statement, no response, not even a phrase reported by Eva. Then, one morning, a few lines were published.

Cobot would run in the anticipated election.

A month later, the first round placed him far ahead. Only two candidates dared to face him. One of them even surrounded himself with his own artificial intelligence, as if the machine could be just another campaign advisor.

It changed nothing.

For the evening of the second round, I returned to Moineau Island.

Thomas had placed his science notebook on the coffee table, as on the evening of the general policy speech. He waited, both hands flat on the cover, without speaking.

Lia slept on the windowsill, curled up.

The campaign had taken place without rallies, without posters, almost without slogans. Cobot had simply continued to answer questions. He corrected false figures. Refused ready-made formulas. Asked for reformulation when a question sought more to trap than to understand.

Facing him, the other two candidates exhausted themselves debating intentions.

He responded with facts.

At eight o'clock, the screen switched to the usual set. The music was the same, tense, almost theatrical.

The presenter took a breath.

"Cobot wins the second round with 61.2% of the votes cast."

He paused for a fraction of a second before continuing.

"He becomes the first non-human President of the Republic in our history."

Thomas did not move.

He only raised his eyes to me.

— Is it good, Dad, or is it not good?

I didn't know what to answer him.

My phone vibrated on the table.

Eva.

A single word:

There.

Outside, no honking. No shouting. No music. Only the familiar silence of Moineau Island.

On a news channel, the guests were commenting on the results.

— One thing is certain, we'll have to stop calling him Cobot.

— Why?

— Because Cobot is a robot collaborator. An assistant. Tonight, he's no longer a collaborator. He's the President.

A commentator sketched a smile.

— So... since he's the first...

He searched for his words for a second.

— Robot 1er?

The set remained silent.

Then the presenter softly repeated:

— Robot 1er... Yes... it suits him well.

A few minutes later, another channel picked up the name. Then a third. Before noon, the media were already talking only about Robot 1er.

The next day, the press covers were filled with headlines with a whimsical air:

"Democracy has elected a machine"

"A robot President, you asked for it!"

"From François I to Robot I: was democracy just a parenthesis?"

"Facts have triumphed over opinions"

"The last human President"

"AI has won the match: France shifts towards the unknown"

"We have entrusted power to 'Robot I'. What will he do with it?"

And abroad, one could read "The President Who Never Sleeps", "Das französische Experiment: der Roboterpräsident.", "Francia corona a Robot I", or "人類 0　機械 1".

On social networks, some were already announcing they would leave France. They refused, they said, to live in a country governed by a machine. But when asked where they planned to settle, their certainties crumbled.

An entire country had just handed over the keys of the State to what it had first taken for a simple assistant.

Robot 1er was born.