D-13 before the second round of the presidential election.

On this occasion, the two candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen engaged in a verbal contest, Tuesday, April 12, on the possibility of modifying the Constitution without going through Parliament.

Marine Le Pen said she wanted to "revitalize" the institutions and the democratic functioning of the country, during a press conference in Vernon (Eure), by proposing a "referendum revolution".

She added that she wanted a revision of the Constitution to include in it the principle of "national priority" and the primacy of national law over international law.

However, to carry out such a project, it would have to go through article 89, which provides that the text must first be adopted in identical terms by the deputies and senators - where it does not have a political majority - before to be submitted to all voters.

But "it is much healthier for it to be the people who vote (a constitutional reform) than the two chambers", estimated the representative of the far right, affirming that "the Constitutional Council has no competence to control a bill that revises the Constitution", an assertion disputed by lawyers.

It is "not true that we can revise the Constitution directly", Emmanuel Macron also replied to him during a trip to Mulhouse: "We must first go through the two (parliamentary) chambers, it it is our Constitution which provides for it and the Constitution, we must respect it".

"This presupposes bringing together all the political forces to a large extent", he insisted again, in reference to his constitutional reform promised in 2017, but aborted two years later after the opposition of the Senate with a majority on the right.

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Convergence on the seven-year term and proportional voting

Marine Le Pen also intends to revise the supreme text to introduce the citizens' initiative referendum and "to make it easier to organize referendums on all subjects".

Currently, with regard to bills - that is to say texts which do not modify the Constitution - only those relating to "the organization of public powers and economic, social and environmental policy" can be submitted. in a referendum, according to Article 11.

"A referendum is not dangerous, giving the floor to the people is not dangerous, what is dangerous is not giving it to them," said the far-right candidate targeting the head of state. .

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The latter replied that referendums "in the context of Article 11" are an instrument that can be used", including for pension reform, but that he wanted to "first favor broad political and with the social partners on this subject".

The two adversaries have, moreover, each defended the return of the seven-year term, Marine Le Pen wishing it "non-renewable".

If, for Emmanuel Macron, a seven-year term is "a good pace for the presidential election" and "a good breather compared to the pace of the legislative elections", he on the contrary defended "the renewable nature".

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The mandate of the President of the Republic was reduced from seven to five years from the presidential election of 2002, following a referendum largely won by the "yes" (73.21%) two years earlier. 

About the establishment of a proportional system for the legislative elections, the outgoing president recalled that he was "rather in favor" and that it was "a good thing".

Marine Le Pen, for her part, also indicated that the measure was part of her project, "with a majority bonus".

With AFP

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