Marine Le Pen plans French constitutional referendum on immigration

The presidential election to be held in France in the spring of 2027 will mark the end of the Emmanuel Macron era. Although the official election campaign has not yet begun, the principal political actors, including the right-wing National Rally (RN), have selected their candidates.

On 7 July, the Paris Court of Appeal effectively lifted the barrier to the eligibility of Marine Le Pen, leader of the RN group in the National Assembly, and Le Pen declared her candidacy on the same day.

Recent opinion polls show Le Pen significantly ahead of her rivals, including the ruling camp, with voter support between 34% and 35.5%.

Support for former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s centrist Renaissance party remains at 13-15%, while the vote share of Édouard Philippe, leader of the centre-right Horizons party who served as prime minister between 2017 and 2020, is measured at between 16.5% and 19%.

In March 2025, the court found Le Pen guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds and barred her from public office for five years.

Evaluating the appeal against the ruling, the Paris Court of Appeal upheld the conviction but ruled that there was no element of personal enrichment.

Under the finalised sentence, Le Pen was handed a fine of 100,000 euros, a three-year prison term with two years suspended, and a 45-month ban from public office with 30 months suspended.

Because the disqualification period was applied from the first-instance court’s decision of 31 March 2025, Le Pen effectively secured the right to contest the 2027 presidential election.

While the RN plans to unveil its election programme at the beginning of next year, Le Monde newspaper warned in an 18 August report that Le Pen’s pledge for a constitutional referendum on immigration would constitute “a coup d’état in form and substance”.

The referendum proposal in question was first raised by Le Pen ahead of the 2022 presidential election.

The RN group submitted this proposal to the National Assembly in January 2024 as a 14-article constitutional amendment bill titled “Citizenship, Identity, and Immigration”.

The text envisages restricting or abolishing birthright citizenship to make it harder for children of foreign nationals to acquire citizenship, introducing the principle of “national priority” in employment, housing, and social assistance, making it more difficult for refugees to obtain legal status, and tightening entry rules into the country.

A separate constitutional amendment block in the proposal aims to make French law superior to international obligations and European Union law in the Constitution of the Fifth Republic.

Le Pen explained the purpose of these regulations as “preventing supranational courts from forcing France to pursue policies contrary to the will of the French people”.

Following the 2024 parliamentary elections, the RN removed the most controversial article from the proposal. This article included a ban on appointing dual nationals to certain public posts.

Le Pen stated that this provision was removed from the text on the grounds that it could create a false impression of unequal treatment of people based on their origins.

No other changes were made to the draft, and Le Pen maintains her determination to enact the provisions.

According to Le Monde, Le Pen plans, in the event of an electoral victory, to combine the referendum with the first round of the parliamentary elections to be held immediately after the presidential election.

In this process, she aims to use Article 11 of the French Constitution, which empowers the head of state to submit an issue directly to a referendum without parliamentary debate.

Article 89 of the Constitution, however, stipulates that constitutional amendments must be approved by both the National Assembly and the Senate before being submitted to a popular vote.

Jean-Éric Schoettl, former Secretary General of the Constitutional Council, described Le Pen’s proposed method as a “double coup, both in procedure and substance”.

Laurent Fabius, the former president of the council, and Richard Ferrand, its current president, also stated that immigration does not fall under the scope of Article 11 and that the procedure in Article 89 must be applied.

The RN camp, for its part, points to the precedent set by Charles de Gaulle, who used Article 11 twice for constitutional changes.

General de Gaulle preferred this route in 1962 for the direct election of the president by universal suffrage, and in 1969 for the reform of the Senate and regional administration.

Philippe Olivier, a special adviser to Le Pen, pushed back against the criticism, asking: “Do Richard Ferrand and Laurent Fabius know the Constitution better than General de Gaulle, and do they reject the interpretation of the founder of the Fifth Republic?”

According to information obtained by Le Monde, Le Pen’s team prepared two alternative plans. The first scenario envisages amending Article 11 itself through the regular procedure in Article 89 to enable constitutional amendments via direct referendum.

The second and more radical scenario involves bypassing existing constitutional procedures entirely. In this case, the party would submit a revised new constitution to a referendum in line with its draft, and voters would cast their ballots as the “constituent people”, the direct source of the new constitutional order.

Although the European Union has significantly tightened its migration policy in recent years, the RN’s proposals go far beyond current European rules.

The draft conflicts with the EU acquis, particularly regarding the restriction of the right to asylum and the principle of national priority.

The national priority approach directly contradicts Article 7 of EU Regulation 492/2011, which guarantees equal treatment and non-discrimination for EU citizens working in another member state.

The new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, which entered into force in June 2026, introduces a common procedural standard for international protection processes.

EU Regulation 2024/1348 also obliges member states to register and examine asylum applications made on their territory or at their borders.

Nicolas Hervieu, a professor of public and European law, stated that the RN’s attempt to place the French constitution above European norms could result in sanctions.

Hervieu indicated that the EU could freeze funds allocated to France, as seen in the cases of Poland and Hungary.

The Hungarian administration took harsh measures during the crisis triggered by the influx of refugees from North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia in 2015.

In 2020, Budapest bypassed EU rules by deciding to grant permission for asylum applications solely to individuals who had received refugee status at its embassies in Kyiv or Belgrade, turning away all other applicants at the border.

Brussels determined that this practice undermined the foundations of the union, and the EU Court of Justice fined Hungary 200 million euros in June 2024 for not accepting asylum seekers.

The court also ruled that the country must pay an additional daily fine of 1 million euros until the legislation is brought into compliance with EU standards.

In Poland, the freezing of funds was grounded on violations of the rule of law and judicial independence during the previous government.

However, disputes over migration continued under the new government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

In May 2024, the Tusk cabinet opposed the mandatory solidarity mechanism included in the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, which envisages assistance for countries under migration pressure; nevertheless, the text was adopted without amendment in the EU Council.

In response to the Polish government’s proposal to temporarily suspend the acceptance of asylum applications due to the situation on the Belarus border, the European Commission stated that Warsaw risked violating its international obligations.

Experts at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) emphasise that if Le Pen is elected, European partners must prepare for a “completely different” France.

According to expert assessments, it is considered possible not only that Paris would adopt a hostile stance towards EU institutions, but also that it would cease to be an ally on core foreign policy files of the union, including the war in Ukraine.

The ECFR report stated: “It is difficult to imagine Le Pen providing a decisive response to the security crisis on Europe’s eastern flank. Even under pressure from EU member states expecting a firmer stance against Russia, it is highly probable that Le Pen would lean towards concessions and negotiations rather than taking resolute steps.”