Issues in relation to which referendums are optional at the national level

Constitution of 1868 (last amended in 2009)

Article 51.

7. The electors may be called to decide by way of referendum in the cases and under the conditions to be determined by the law.

Article 114

Any revision of the Constitution must be adopted in the same terms by the Chamber of Deputies in two successive votes, separated by an interval of at least three months.

No revision will be adopted if it has not obtained at least two-thirds of the votes of the members of the Chamber; votes by proxy will not be admitted.

The text adopted in the first reading by the Chamber of Deputies is submitted to a referendum, which substitutes for the second vote of the Chamber, if in the two months following the first vote demand for it is made[,] either by more than a quarter of the members of the Chamber, or by twenty-five thousand electors inscribed in the electoral lists for legislative elections. The revision can only be adopted if it receives the majority of the valid suffrage expressed. The law governs the modalities of organization of the referendum.