French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday he would use referendums to press through his reforms on the country's institutions if parliament failed to approve them in one year.
Speaking to a rare session of both houses of parliament, Macron said: "I hope that all the deep transformations which I have just described and which our institutions are in desperate need of, are adopted within a year."
"These reforms will be put to the vote of the parliament but, if necessary, I will resort to the vote of our citizens via a referendum," he added.
Setting his guidelines for his five-year roadmap, Macron pledged to act to reform the country's institutions with "efficiency, representativeness and responsibility."
During his term, France's youngest head of state pledged to trim the number of elected officials in the parliament, but at the same time to "strengthen its means" so that "work becomes more fluid."
Furthermore, he wants to remove the Court of Justice of the Republic which handles government officials' trials and further reinforce magistrates' independence.
"The law is not made to follow the small steps of the life of our country, but to frame the deep trends," he said, calling for the "effectiveness" of the institutions and to "legislate less."
"The people have given us a mandate, I want to talk about the institutions that I want to change and the principles of actions I intend to follow," he said to those gathered.
At the parliamentary session, Macron promised to evaluate the process of his reforms and policy at an annual Congress meeting.

Source: Xinhua