The French Constitutional Council has rejected the request from the centre-right party Les Républicains (LR) to hold a referendum on immigration issues.
After being voted through, Macron’s immigration law was gutted—against the wishes of a significant proportion of right-wing MPs—by the Constitutional Council, which rejected many of its provisions, robbing it of much of its effectiveness and firmness. In an attempt to counter this, the Les Républicains party submitted a request to organise a referendum, as is possible under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic.
The question, which concerned the conditions of social assistance that is paid to foreigners residing in France, was to be submitted for approval to the “Sages” (the wise men), as the political figures who sit on the Constitutional Council are known.
The Council is one of the country’s highest administrative bodies and is responsible, in particular, for checking that laws comply with the constitution. Its approval is the first step required in the process to organise a referendum.
While the Constitutional Council’s censure of the Immigration Act a few weeks ago mainly concerned questions of form, this time the Sages have ruled on the substance. The LR proposal has recently been attacked by the Left and described as “national preference”—a term referring to reserving social benefits for French nationals, a policy embraced by the Rassemblement National and denounced by the Left. The fact the Court is dominated by the Left helps explain the decision, clearly made for political reasons.
The Sages rejected LR’s application because they considered that the proposed measures did not comply with “legal guarantees,” particularly in terms of “a policy of national solidarity in favour of disadvantaged people.” In their view, the Right’s intention to make “the receipt of social benefits” conditional on a certain amount of time of legal residency in France would “disproportionately infringe” the social protection rights of legal foreign nationals. The Sages targeted their criticism at the length of residency proposed by LR to qualify for social benefits, which they considered to be too long.
Party president Éric Ciotti voiced his dissatisfaction on X, criticising a “small caste” which he accused of “confiscating democracy” and preventing the French from expressing an opinion on immigration.
However, the Constitutional Council’s rejection comes as no surprise. Despite their indignation, when the news was announced, LR was expecting it. Even if the Constitutional Council had validated the principle of the referendum, the hardest part remained: obtaining 4.8 million signatures from French citizens to make it conclusively possible—an almost unattainable threshold.
The party’s main aim is to capitalise on this decision and exploit it politically, highlighting its ultimate objective: if LR wins in 2027, to obtain a revision of the constitution that will allow immigration law to be reformed, which is the only way to break the deadlock in France on this issue, since all attempts to toughen the law have failed.
The national-conservative Rassemblement National is also calling for a constitutional revision.
According to the latest polls, almost 70% of French people say they are in favour of a referendum on immigration.
