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Sheikh Qassem: Our supporters make up more than half of Lebanon's population, and all of these people are united under the banner of protecting Lebanon, its Resistance, its people, and its integrity.
Sheikh Qassem: There will be no phased handing in of our arms. [The Israelis] must first enact the agreement before we start talking about a defensive strategy.
Sheikh Qassem: Be brave in the face of foreign pressures, and we will be by your side in this stance.
Sheikh Qassem: Stripping us of our arms is like stripping us of our very soul, and this will prompt us to show them our might.
Sheikh Qassem: We will not abandon our arms, for they gave us dignity; we will not abandon our arms, for they protect us against our enemy.
Sheikh Qassem: The US efforts we are seeing are aimed at sabotaging Lebanon and constitute a call for sedition.
Sheikh Qassem: If you truly want to establish sovereignty and work for Lebanon’s interests, then stop the aggression.
Sheikh Qassem: The United States, which is meddling in Lebanon, is not trustworthy but rather poses a danger to it.
Sheikh Qassem: The United States is preventing the weapons that protect the homeland.
Sheikh Qassem: The government’s latest decision [on the disarmament of the Resistance] is non-charter-based, and if the government continues down this path, it is not faithful to Lebanon’s sovereignty.

Macron promises referendums to be made simpler

  • By Al Mayadeen English
  • Source: Agencies
  • 4 Oct 2023 17:54
3 Min Read

The French President says the constitution "should not be revised in the grip of emotion."

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  • Macron promises more referendums
    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."

Read more: French politician demands no more weapons shipments to Kiev

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).

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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.

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  • Emmanuel Macron
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