Macron Rejects Own Government’s Call for National Referendum on Migration

French President Emmanuel Macron shot down calls for a national referendum on the mass migration policies imposed on France, despite his Minister of Interior backing a public vote on the issue.

In an interview with French broadcaster TF1 on Tuesday evening, President Macron said he is planning to “organise several referendums in the coming months” on various issues, as was proposed by recently-installed Prime Minister François Bayrou to deal with contentious issues unable to be resolved in the deadlock of the three-way split National Assembly.

While Macron did not confirm which policies he would be in favour of consulting the public on, he specifically rejected referendums on his contentious pension reforms as well as on immigration. The president said that he did not believe a national vote on migration “would fall within the scope” of the French Constitution.

Article 11 of the Constitution allows for the president to hold public votes on issues concerning the “economic or social policy of the nation.” While immigration clearly impacts both the economic and social situation of the country, because it is not specifically mentioned, the legality of such a referendum has been called into question.

However, proponents, including Macron’s Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, have noted the National Assembly could amend the constitution to allow for the public to vote on immigration directly.

In an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche over the weekend, Retailleau said: “For half a century, no phenomenon has disrupted our society so much. None. It is therefore legitimate to ask the French if they still want this immigration model, if they are ready to assume the social, cultural and economic consequences. There needs to be democratic clarification.”

According to government figures published in 2021, there were around seven million immigrants living in France, or around 10 per cent of the entire population of the country. This does not include large numbers of second and third generations of migrants, such as the so-called “Maghrebi” communities hailing from areas of North Africa with former French colonial ties such as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.

There has been increasing instances of Islamic terrorism and of ethnic conflicts in France, including the widespread riots of 2023 following the police killing of a 17-year-old of Moroccan and Algerian descent in Nantere, a suburb of Paris home to large ethnic minority enclaves.

Calls for a referendum on migration have long been made by the populist National Rally of Marine Le Pen. Redoubling the demand, RN president Jordan Bardella said this week that public votes represent “the healthiest form in a democracy of addressing the people” as they “allow the French to seize their destiny.”

A migrant camp near Ile Saint-Louis is seen along the quays of the Seine river in Paris, France on March 30, 2025.(Mohamad Salaheldin Abdelg Alsayed/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The MEP argued that an immigration referendum was necessary as it has “become a real phenomenon of submersion which modifies our culture, our lifestyles, and our identity.” Bardella added that the issue should not be treated as a “totem, nor a taboo, and even less an inevitability.”

The French public overwhelmingly agree with the idea of holding a national vote on immigration. A survey this month from Odoxa-Backbone found that 71 per cent of respondents supported holding such a vote. However, 57 per cent did not think President Macron would call for an immigration referendum.

There is widespread scepticism in France about referendums in general, with six in ten believing the president will not follow through with his promise to hold public votes and over seven in ten believing that if he did, it would merely be a cynical ploy to re-establish political control for the weakened president.

Doubts over the efficacy of referenda in France is perhaps not unfounded given the controversy surrounding the last referendum held in 2005 over the treaty to establish the Constitution for Europe.

While the public definitively rejected the treaty, many felt the vote was essentially circumvented by political elites with the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon without consulting the public.

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