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A reflection on whether and how the Conseil Constitutionnel takes account of “values” may seem paradoxical, such is the legitimacy it enjoys in the French tradition arising from its allegiance to the constitution and its capacity for self-restraint in keeping attempts at opportunistic control at bay. And yet it is difficult to believe that a constitutional judge can rule without taking account of a minimum of context-based reference values, by which we mean extra-legal considerations of a moral, economic, social and even political or ideological nature. But recognising this fact amounts to upsetting a number of certainties: it would overturn the notion of the constitutional judge’s syllogistic reasoning; the interpretation of the constitution would begin slide towards a finalistic, realistic or consequentialist type of justificatory approach, these being the characteristics of the theory of living constitutionalism; and interpretation would no longer be an act of knowledge but an act of will. And what if a form of constitutional pragmatism were to become the new standard in the light of which the legitimacy of the Conseil Constitutionnel is evaluated?