Gilles Mentré is president of Electis and deputy mayor (LR) of the 15th arrondissement of Paris. He is the author of
Démocratie – Let's give the vote back to citizens
, published in November 2021 by Odile Jacob.
In April 2022, the candidate Emmanuel Macron had indicated that he did not rule out the referendum for any reform, and in particular not for that of pensions.
He was in favor, he said, of
“finding”
this instrument.
If he did not keep his promise, 250 opposition deputies have just done it for him.
At the same time as the vote of the motions of censure, they tabled a draft referendum of shared initiative (RIP) which would allow, if it is approved by the Constitutional Council and co-signed by almost 4.8 million French people, to organize a direct vote of the citizens.
This last threshold is reputed to be difficult to cross (remember that Emmanuel Macron had undertaken to reduce it to one million), but the importance of popular mobilization makes this prospect credible.
Read also“The shared initiative referendum is designed never to be used”
A referendum on pensions is fully legitimate.
Two out of three French people are in favor of it.
They generally want, and in the same proportion, that the main orientations of the country be defined directly by the citizens.
Our system cannot simply be representative.
In the face of growing polarization and abstention, we need to build new majorities.
This evidence is even stronger when it comes to pension reform.
The relative majority that Emmanuel Macron claimed after the presidential and legislative elections, if it retains a legal value, is no longer sufficient to reflect a general will.
Especially when it comes to a subject that deeply affects everyone's life and is at the heart of our social contract.
Making the French people work for two more years without the support of public opinion, unions or parliament risks crystallizing a cold anger that will further fragment the country.
Only a referendum would make it possible to “remake Nation”.
The referendum on pensions would then turn into a French Brexit, not because it would distance us from our European partners, but because it would leave the country without a compass.
Gilles Mentre
What should the question be asked of the French?
The current draft RIP would lead to a decision for or against limiting the legal retirement age to 62 years.
The proposal is unfortunate.
If it is a question of choosing between working less or working more, without further consideration, it is legitimate to doubt that a majority will choose the latter option.
If yes, how to balance our pension system?
Should taxes be raised?
Reduce retirement pensions?
The British vote on Brexit has shown the danger of binary popular consultations which say nothing about the consequences of a refusal.
Such a formulation ultimately risks diverting the RIP from its true vocation, by transforming it into a plebiscite for or against Emmanuel Macron.
The question of what the French really want for the future of their pensions would remain open.
The referendum on pensions would then turn into a French Brexit, not because it would distance us from our European partners, but because it would leave the country without a compass.
It is time to get out of a too narrow conception of the referendum.
Let's stop distrusting ourselves and decide more openly.
The lively debate of recent months has made each of us capable of measuring the stakes of the reform – the polls show that the French have the various parameters perfectly in mind.
The only valid question is that we decide between the main options for balancing the system: raising the retirement age, extending the duration of contributions, raising taxes, lowering pensions.
Read also Pensions: if the Constitutional Council validates the request for RIP, can the law still be enacted?
We could even go further, and ask each voter to rank these different options, from the one they prefer to the one they want the least.
Several American cities and states already use this preferential vote, following the example of New York, thus avoiding that a majority rejected option comes first because of the scattering of votes among the others.
A variant would consist in expressing a judgment (from very good to fair or even insufficient) on each option.
This technique of Majority Judgment had a more or less successful first use with the popular Primary, but its application to options rather than to candidates will separate it from its "notebook" side.
Such solutions have already been tried out, in both paper and electronic voting, and have shown that
Faced with the crisis of our institutions, we must transgress our political habits and relieve our anxiety in the face of direct democracy.
Gilles Mentre
It is too late to change the text of the draft RIP tabled by parliamentarians.
But Emmanuel Macron still has the possibility of keeping his campaign commitment and “finding” the referendum.
He could refuse to promulgate the law and propose, conversely, a national consultation on pensions.
Unlike the “great debate” which followed the first demonstrations of the “yellow vests”, the citizens would decide this time in a clear way by a vote between options.
And unlike citizen conventions drawn by lot, which can only inform the debate at best, this vote would have full legitimacy.
Even if this consultation does not meet the definition of a referendum in the etymological and constitutional sense (which supposes voting for or against an existing project),
This would be a major innovation, but the democratic crisis we are going through prohibits the status quo.
A traditional referendum by yes or no could lead to an even deeper deadlock for lack of concrete avenues for action, and the recourse to the people would find itself as discredited in France as it is now in the United Kingdom.
Faced with the crisis of our institutions, we must transgress our political habits and relieve our anxiety in the face of direct democracy.
This is not the enemy of representative democracy, but its lifeline.