Arguments of law certainly weigh little in an electoral campaign, but if Marine Le Pen were elected to the presidency of the Republic, she will have to end up rubbing it. Especially since the point is decisive: the candidate of the National Rally, as soon as she arrives at the Elysée, intends to revise the Constitution to establish “a national priority” and save “16 billion euros” on benefits to foreigners – rather 6 billion in reality, according to our information. If it does not succeed in imposing its referendum, there is a risk of having a famous hole in its budget. However, this referendum is obviously unconstitutional, and to pass by force would, according to several jurists, be “constitutional coup”.
The referendum bill on national priority, already put together and made public, is in fact resolutely contrary to the Constitution: it clashes head-on with the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789, the preamble to the Constitution of 1946 (which part of the constitutional block), and is contrary to at least six major articles of our Basic Law. Marine Le Pen does not say the opposite, and therefore intends to change the Constitution.
It is obviously possible. There were nineteen constitutional revisions under the Ve Republican, but the procedure under Article 89 is cumbersome – and fortunately: “You should only touch it with a trembling hand”, said Montesquieu. The National Assembly and the Senate must first vote on the draft revision in the same terms. The two chambers, meeting in Congress, must then vote on it with a three-fifths majority, or else the project must be adopted by referendum – this was the case only once, in 2000, to reduce the presidential term to five years.
Serious obstacle
This referendum provided for in article 89 is out of reach for Marine Le Pen. Even if it obtained a majority in the Assembly, the Senate would never vote for a compliant text – the Les Républicains group has 146 members out of 348, and Marine Le Pen has lost its only senator, who went to Eric Zemmour. There remains another referendum, provided for by Article 11. General de Gaulle used it twice, in 1962, to have the President of the Republic elected by universal suffrage, then in 1969, to impose a reform of the Senate. The failure of the second had led him to his resignation: the referendum always has a plebiscite dimension.
The maneuver, in 1962, had in fact raised an outcry. Gaston Monnerville, President of the Senate and originally a rather Gaullist, had spoken of “forfeiture” about the Prime Minister, Georges Pompidou, who had signed the project. “Forfaiture”, a terrible word for an elected representative, which designates the crime of a public official in the exercise of his functions.
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