The co-princes of Andorra: a French president and a Catalan bishop

Ask who the prince of Andorra is and the answer sounds like a pub quiz trick. There are two of them, neither is simply a prince, neither is Andorran and neither lives in the country. One is the President of France and the other is a Catalan bishop. It still works, and for me it’s the single most interesting thing about Andorra.

The two co-princes in 2026

Spain’s Foreign Ministry lists the co-princes, as of September 2026, as Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic since 14 May 2017 and re-elected in 2022, and Josep-Lluís Serrano i Pentinat, Bishop of Urgell.

The bishop was born in Tivissa, in Tarragona, on 19 March 1977. He was appointed coadjutor bishop on 12 July 2024, the role that works alongside the sitting bishop and succeeds him, and became diocesan bishop and co-prince on 31 May 2025. You’ll see him promoted to a grander title in some English write-ups, but Urgell is a bishopric.

The French co-prince also has a personal representative in Andorra. Since June 2026 that’s Frédéric Rose, according to a news item from the Comú of Escaldes-Engordany dated 9 September.

A handover in two steps

The most recent change on the episcopal side went smoothly, and the dates tell the story. Serrano i Pentinat arrived as coadjutor in July 2024 and spent almost a year alongside the previous bishop before taking over the diocese, and the co-principality with it, on 31 May 2025. It’s the Church’s way of guaranteeing continuity in a post that, in Andorra, also happens to be a state office.

On the French side the handover is far more abrupt, because it hangs on an election. One day the co-prince is one president and the next day another, and Andorra, as a country, has no say in that vote.

Where the arrangement comes from

It all goes back to two medieval treaties, the Pareatges of 1278 and 1288, signed by the Bishop of Urgell and the Count of Foix to end years of feuding. They created shared sovereignty and, with it, the principality. The Foix role later passed to the kings of France and then to French presidents, while the bishop’s never changed hands. There’s more on this in the history of Andorra.

That’s why there’s no princess, no heir and no royal household. Nobody inherits the job. One co-prince wins an election in France; the other is appointed Bishop of Urgell.

What do the co-princes actually do?

Andorra Turisme puts it in a sentence. They are the two heads of state and represent the people jointly and indivisibly. Since the Constitution of 14 March 1993, Andorra has been a parliamentary co-principality, so law-making and government rest with the General Council, a 28-member parliament, and with the Government led by the Cap de Govern.

If you want to know who runs the country from day to day, how parliament is elected and when the next vote is, that’s on Andorra’s government. This page sticks to the co-princes.

Why 2027 matters

Emmanuel Macron’s term ends in May 2027, and the winner of the French presidential election becomes co-prince of Andorra with no further ceremony needed. I still find it a lovely oddity that French voters, in effect, choose half of another country’s head of state.

Andorra also expects its own general election in the spring of 2027, so the top of the principality will look rather different by the end of that year.

Will you notice any of this on holiday?

Hardly at all, and that says something too. There’s no palace, no changing of the guard and no royal checkpoint on the way in. What you will see is the balance written into the national symbols. The coat of arms has two quarters for each co-prince, including the bishop’s mitre and crozier, which I cover in the Andorra flag.

For a British reader, the closest comparison is a constitutional monarch who reigns but doesn’t govern, except that here the role is split in two and neither half is born into it. The comparison only goes so far, but it helps to explain why Andorrans talk about their Cap de Govern far more than about either co-prince.

The one building I’d send you to for making sense of it all is the Casa de la Vall, the General Council’s seat from 1702 to 2011. It shows that this country was kept going by its own neighbours and their parliament, with two distant lords giving it the shape of a state.