By Greg Oxley
The reactionary trap of the “citizens’ initiative referendum”
If the party of Marine Le Pen, Rassemblement National, wins the next presidential election and obtains, alone or with other parties, a parliamentary majority, France will find itself under the heel of its most reactionary regime since that of Marshal Pétain under the Nazi Occupation.
The program of Rassemblement National (RN) poses a very serious threat to all workers — including those who will have brought it to power — on the social, economic, democratic and environmental levels.
The RN’s xenophobic policies are aimed at scapegoating “foreigners”, a category which seems to include, in addition to migrants, all French citizens of Muslim faith or culture. Once in power, the RN will wield the power of the state apparatus to sow division and impose draconian austerity policies. With the guaranteed support of major media outlets, the RN will heap blame on “foreigners” for falling living standards and a range of social problems, to justify repressive and discriminatory measures against them.
Tragically, the left will find it difficult to prevent the RN from coming to power, given its own historical record. Brought to power time after time, on the basis of commitments to the needs of working people, it systematically betrayed the trust of its supporters. Once in government, the Socialist and Communist Party leaders carried out policies in line with the interests of the ruling class on all essential issues. We are still paying the price of these betrayals today.
General rise of nationalism across Europe
The failure of the left in the past does not alone explain the RN’s progress. It is also part of a general rise of nationalist and protectionist tendencies throughout Europe, fuelled by the social and economic consequences of capitalist “globalisation”. But by repeatedly letting down their own social base, the left parties have greatly facilitated the far right’s march to power.
Today, the policy of the Socialist Party (PS) is quite similar to that of Emmanuel Macron. For their part, the parties of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, La France Insoumise (LFI) and the Communist Party (PCF), put forward a wide range of relatively audacious social reforms, and even speak of the need to break with capitalism, without, however, having any serious strategy to achieve this.
If the leaders of these parties had prioritised the struggle against the RN and the right before their mutual rivalry, they would be waging a common campaign around a single candidate, making it easier to mobilise the left-wing electorate. An electoral alliance of this type would not have prevented the expression of political differences between the left parties, where they exist.
As it is, the left will go into the 2027 elections weakened and divided. All is not lost, however. The presidential election and the following legislative elections will only be stages in what must necessarily be a broader and longer struggle.
Even if the elections bring Marine Le Pen to the presidency and give her a viable parliamentary majority, she will face strong popular protest movements, in the streets, in neighbourhoods and in the workplaces. The policies of discrimination and persecution in the RN’s program will lead to very serious consequences, opening up a period of intense social instability and turbulence.
Social security reserved for the ‘French’
Can we stand aside while state authorities introduce discrimination in hiring, social benefits or the attribution of council houses according to origin, skin colour or religion? Le Pen wants to reserve social security for the ‘French’, to make access to benefits conditional on five years of work in France, and give priority to the French in employment opportunities. She also wants to put an end to processing of asylum applications in France and to withdraw the residence permit of any foreigner who has not worked for a year.
Can we accept the abolition of the right of nationality by birth and the mass deportation of “foreigners” under various pretexts? Beyond the ballot box, massive mobilisation at grassroots level will be the key to resisting and defeating the authoritarian and xenophobic regime that Le Pen wants to bring about.
The referendum, a classic instrument of authoritarian regimes
One of the subterfuges that Le Pen wants to use to support her regime is a so-called “citizens’ initiative referendum” (RIC). She says she will start with a referendum to validate a set of repressive measures concerning immigration, then a second to ban the wearing of the “Islamic” headscarf in public spaces, including in the street. It should be noted in passing that during her 2012 campaign, Le Pen targeted both the traditional Muslim veil and the Jewish kippah, but today, she only mentions the “Islamic” headscarf.
Historically, the referendum has often been used as a weapon by dictatorial or authoritarian regimes. France has known this since the time of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who came to power after the defeat of the 1848 revolutionary outbreak. He then proceeded to acquire the status of hereditary emperor through a referendum in 1852! Adolf Hitler, too, used the referendum to consolidate and extend his power, in 1934 and again in 1936.
Presented as the direct expression of “the will of the people”, the result of a referendum is given an almost sacred ‘legitimacy’, but in reality, it is more about how public opinion can be manipulated. A referendum is not a process that allows the dissemination of often complex and nuanced information and informed discussion – that is the basis of real democracy – but one where the establishment and the media mobilise opinion with simple slogans and highly slanted news. A referendum may have the appearance of “democracy” but in reality, it serves to undermine and destroy it.
A more recent example of political manipulation by referendum is the UK referendum on leaving the European Union, which produced an outcome as a result of an agreement between the Tory party right wing and the far right around Farage’s then UK Independence Party. Nothing better summarises the simplistic panaceas of the Brexit campaigners than the message on the side of a bus – “We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead“ – a total lie, of course. According to the supporters of Brexit, leaving the EU would stimulate the national economy, free up huge sums for the NHS and improve employment through the expulsion of European workers living in the United Kingdom.
NHS on the verge of collapse
And for what result? Today, the National Health Service (NHS) is on the verge of collapse and Brexit has cut between 6 and 8% off the UK GDP. As for employment, the United Kingdom officially had 1.78 million unemployed in May 2026, an increase of 4.7% in one year. Over the same period, the number of unemployed young people increased by 109,000, according to government statistics. The nationalist claim that the presence of too many “foreigners” was weighing on the economy and the standard of living of the British was nothing but a reactionary lie.
Le Pen is now planning a similar operation on immigration in France. She wants to use referendums to impose a policy of xenophobic harassment against the Muslim population, sanctioned by the “will of the people”. By reducing a cleverly formulated question to a simple “yes” or “no”, the referendum is a political tool perfectly suited to authoritarianism. Le Pen will use it to marginalise the opposition, while adopting the posture of a “democrat”.
We must denounce the populist demagogy of the RN and expose the reactionary trap of referenda. This task is however complicated by the support of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and PCF leader, Fabien Roussel, for so-called “citizens’ initiative” referenda, which they, too, present as a form of “direct democracy”. They probably think that a referendum could impose positive social reforms, without realising that they are a political device that can and will be used against the very interests they seek to defend.
What we expect from the LFI and the PCF is not supposedly “democratic” tricks to validate this or that individual measure or set of measures. In the hands of a reactionaries, this same tool can easily legitimise austerity and the persecution of ethnic or religious minorities. Fabien Roussel and Jean-Luc Mélenchon seem to underestimate this danger.
Asked on BFMTV and RMC in 2019 about the RIC demanded by some of the “yellow vests” (a widespread protest movement in France eight years ago) Fabien Roussel said he was in favour of the organisation of referenda “on all subjects“. Asked about same-sex marriage or the reinstatement of the death penalty, he replied: “But why not? On all subjects, let’s not be afraid! […] Of course, if the French want it! We must not be afraid of debate.”
The left confused on the issue of the referendum
Roussel’ position, like that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has not changed since then. Therefore, if Marine Le Pen organises, possibly with a prior “popular” petition in hand, a referendum on “national preference” or the criminalisation of the wearing of headscarves (incidentally just for Muslim women, since for non-Muslim women, a headscarf is merely a fashion statement!), must we now expect Fabien Roussel to answer: “Of course! If the French want it, why not?” And if the vote establishes blatant racist discrimination, will he then advocate respect for the “will of the people?”
The “Citizens’ Initiative Referendum” is a reactionary trap that the left must not support. It must be removed from the programs of La France Insoumise and the French Communist Party.
Rather than making concessions to populist demagogy, we need a left with a program of implacable defence of the rights and freedoms of all citizens, a program of social, economic and environmental reforms to improve living conditions.
And above all, these immediate and defensive objectives must be linked to the need to put an end to the economic power of the capitalist class, to the dictatorship of capital. This can only be accomplished by a massive extension of the public sector, by the nationalisation of all large companies to pave the way for democratic planning of the country’s productive and financial resources for the benefit of society. Only the mobilisation of the youth and workers around a program of radical transformation of society will make it possible to defeat the right, the far right and the ruling class they represent.
[Greg Oxley is the editor of the French Marxist website, La Riposte, which can be found here]
[Feature picture of Marine Le Pen from Wikimedia Commons, here]
