Referendums in France

This constitution, inspired by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, also planned to use a referendum for the adoption of laws which needed to obtain the approval of the people.

[citation needed] When the people met in assembly, if one-tenth of them in at least half of the departments (plus one), objected to the proposed law (see Articles 58-60), it was repealed.

[citation needed] Under the imperial regimes, referendums became a plebiscites,[Note 4][citation needed] an aid in giving power to Bonaparte who, assisted by a zealous and pervasive administration, in 1800 obtained the Consulate after the coup of 18 Brumaire and the Consulate for life, and his transformation during the Empire, it gets extended, even if in moderated form at hundred Days.

While similarly for Napoleon III who endorsed the coup of 1851, and the restoration of the Empire where clear constitutionalized plebiscitary techniques,[Note 5] before ratifying a highly liberalized government on the eve of the war of 1870.

If lawyer Edouard Laboulaye defended the referendum in isolation at the time of establishment of the Third Republic, the entire doctrine, considered to be inconsistent with the parliamentary system until Carré de Malberg, who brilliantly supported an inverse position in 1931.

[citation needed] However, General Charles de Gaulle reintroduced the use of referendum from the liberation of France in 1945 to end the Third Republic, and give the country a provisional plan.

[citation needed] In this instance, the referendum was in a much more democratic context than under the Empire, where the practice was strongly tinged with the plebiscite that de Gaulle would nevertheless regulate.

Besides the use, by some considered unconstitutional, of Article 11 in 1962 and 1969 (see below), which raised strong debate and the establishment of a "cartel of no";[2] by the President of the Senate even speaking of "forfeiture."

We also know that de Gaulle considering the referendum as a substitute for the dissolution to arbitrate any disagreement with Parliament, as a means to rejuvenate his personal legitimacy.

In addition, out of an almost cultural dimension, the referendum may trigger a minor increase in interest and low participation which, because of the requirement for a quorum, reduces the scope of its result (as in 1972 and especially in 1988).

The bill to expand the scope of Article 11 to include civil liberties was adopted by the National Assembly but was rejected by the Senate in 1984[citation needed].

On September 10, 1991, President Mitterrand announced a referendum in order to effect institutional reform affecting the presidential office, justice and the role of Parliament.