Pouvoir Aux Citoyens : Transformation Électorale — “Power to the Citizens: Electoral Transformation”
12 reforms to the rules of the democratic game. Not a left-wing or right-wing platform: a contract the French people ask their elected officials to sign, so that the people finally get to decide. PACTE imposes no solution: it organizes the debate, then the referendum — and whatever the French people choose is what takes effect. Neither left nor right — transpartisan rules.
The starting point
Is voting every five years really deciding?
Between two elections, citizens have no way to propose, correct, or block anything. They're told, “You voted — now let us govern.” Distrust deepens, abstention soars, and the feeling that “it's all decided in advance” wears the country down.
“A democracy where the people can never call a vote — the citizens' initiative referendum (RIC) — isn't fully a democracy yet.”
The idea
Agree on clean rules first — then argue about everything else
Left, right, greens, sovereigntists: you will always fight over what to do. PACTE doesn't touch that. It fixes the “how we decide”: who votes, who gets elected, who informs, who holds power to account. Rules that everyone can want, because they hand no one an advantage.
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The people decide
The RIC: propose laws, repeal them, recall officials, amend the Constitution. The final word belongs to the citizens.
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Fair rules
A more representative voting system (open to debate), blank ballots that count, candidacies open to ordinary citizens.
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A free press
Equal airtime, an end to news media concentrated in the hands of a few billionaires.
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Honest power
Officials who answer for their record, independent courts and watchdogs, real consequences for corruption.
“We're not asking you to switch sides. We're asking you to sign for clean rules.”
The promise
12 months of debate, 1 referendum, written into the Constitution
12 months of public debate — one reform per month. Each month, one reform is debated and its options are laid out as simple checkboxes.
Then a single multiple-choice referendum. One year after the presidential election, the people settle every question in a single vote.
The result is written into the Constitution. Both the principle and the chosen terms — the people's choice takes effect as is, for good.
The leverage
A pledge every party can sign without renouncing anything
PACTE is a signed commitment, public and reciprocal. Each candidate simply states whether they take it up — or not. And citizens hold a lever that's just as simple:
The reciprocal pledge
Candidate: “If elected, I will open the year of public debate on the 12 reforms, then put their options to the people by referendum, one year to the day after the election.”
Citizen: “I will only vote for a candidate who has signed PACTE.”
When hundreds of thousands of citizens make this pledge, signing PACTE becomes the obvious move — a point of agreement, not a trap.