VERSAILLES/PARIS – France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, told parliament in a ceremonial address on Monday that he would seek direct approval from voters in a referendum if parliament failed to sign off his intended institutional reforms quickly enough.
Elected only two months ago by a hefty majority, Macron told the lawmakers of both houses, summoned especially to the Palace of Versailles, that he wanted to cut the number of lawmakers by a third, curb the executive’s role in naming magistrates, and introduce a “dose” of proportional representation.
Macron’s upstart Republic on the Move (LREM) party has secured a comfortable majority in the National Assembly – but France’s youngest leader since Napoleon made clear his impatience to complete the reshaping of the political landscape that he has begun.
“The French people are not driven by patient curiosity, but by an uncompromising demand. It is a profound transformation that they expect,” Macron told the specially convened joint session of parliament.
“I want all these deep reforms that our institutions seriously need to be done within a year. These reforms will go to parliament but, if necessary, I will put them to voters in a referendum.”
Macron also pressed his case for reform of Europe.
An ardent advocate of deeper European Union integration who put reviving Europe’s Franco-German axis and treaty reform at the centre of his presidential campaign, Macron said excessive bureaucracy had fueled euroscepticism among the public.
“The last 10 years have been cruel for Europe. We have managed crises but we have lost our way,” Macron said.
“I firmly believe in Europe, but I don’t find this scepticism unjustified.”
Macron, whose centrist platform has routed both the traditional rightist and leftist parties of government, is not the first French leader to convene a so-called Congress of both houses, though past presidents have tended to use it in times of crisis or for constitutional reforms.
Macron’s aides had said that, by bringing parliament’s 925 lawmakers to the 17th century palace built outside Paris by Louis XIV – the ‘Sun King’ – the president was seeking to restore old-fashioned grandeur to the role.
