Macron promises referendums to be made simpler
3 Min Read
The French President says the constitution "should not be revised in the grip of emotion."
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French President Emmanuel Macron briefing reporters at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on December 4, 2021. (AFP)
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that he will widen the issues that may be voted on in a referendum and lower the requirements for convening a public vote.
Constitutional amendments on the ballot should address more "important areas of national life," Macron indicated, without addressing immigration, which conservatives and the French far-right want to submit to the voters.
The French President did warn that referendums cannot "get out of the rule of law" – as right-wingers aim to do by abandoning European laws on migration and refugees – claiming that the right to asylum remains unaffected.
During a speech to the Constitutional Council on the 65th anniversary of France's 1958 founding document, Macron expressed that the constitution "should not be revised in the grip of emotion."
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Hoping to calm a febrile political situation fueled by his failure to secure a majority at last year's parliamentary elections, Macron also promised the thresholds would be "revised" to call so-called shared initiative referendums (RIP).
The ballots currently require at least 185 MPs or senators and one-tenth of registered voters to back them before they can go ahead -- conditions so complex that not one has been held since their introduction in 2008.
Organizing an RIP "must be made simpler," Macron said.
The French President also expressed there should be no "contest of legitimacy" between representative democracy in parliament and direct democracy in a referendum, warning that if there is, parliament may reverse a referendum result.
He mentioned France's rejection of the draft European constitution in 2005, many of whose components ended up in the subsequent Treaty of Lisbon, which was accepted by parliament in 2007.
Macron also restated his goal of securing abortion rights in the French constitution, which he declared a priority after the US Supreme Court abolished it last year.
Changing France's constitution needs a two-thirds majority of the lower and upper chambers of the National Assembly and Senate, or ratification in a referendum.
Some analysts and the hard-left France Unbowed party argue that reform is required to restore legitimacy to the Charles de Gaulle-installed system that concentrates power with the French president.
A law professor Dominique Rousseau wrote to Le Monde, that a revolution would be "inevitable" if a revision to the constitution is not done.
