SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

French parliamentary elections – when do they happen and why are they important?

No sooner has the dust settled from the presidential elections, then France is back into campaigning mode for the parliamentary elections. Here's what happens and why they are important.

French parliamentary elections - when do they happen and why are they important?
There's more voting to come in France in the parliamentary elections in June. Photo by SIMON WOLFHART/STR / AFP

When?

Parliamentary elections take place in June. Like the presidential elections they take place over two rounds, but this time there is just a week between the two rounds – on June 12th and 19th.

Candidates have until May 20th to file nomination papers with the préfecture and then the campaign officially begins on May 30th.

What?

The parliamentary elections are to vote for députés, roughly equivalent of MPs in the UK, who represent a geographical area and who sit in the Assemblée nationale, the lower house of the French parliament.

There are 577 députés, each representing a geographical area of about 125,000 inhabitants. Constituencies, known as circonscriptions in French, are therefore generally considerably smaller than départements.

The députés have a mandate of five years, and the entire assembly is up for re-election every five years.

There are also députés who represent French citizens living overseas and they have their own ‘constituencies’ which basically divide the world into areas – northern Europe, southern Europe, Americas etc.

How does the voting system work?

Unsurprisingly, there’s quite a complex system for voting.

In the first round on June 12th, voters can pick anyone on the ballot paper.

If one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, they are elected and there is no need for a second round.

If no-one scores higher than 50 percent there is a second round. Unlike in the presidential election, there can be more than two candidates in the second round – the two highest scoring candidates go through plus anyone who has achieved more than 12.5 percent of the vote.

Voters then go back to the polling station on June 19th and vote again, and this time the person with the highest score is elected. 

Then what happens?

When the vote is over each député is confirmed as representing a particular area, and they are considered responsible for looking out for the interests of their constituents, campaigning on local issues etc.

They are also issued with their official tricolour sashes, which they wear on formal occasions. 

Why are these elections important?

Because the députés form party-based voting blocks in the parliament.

The president is elected separately in a direct-vote system, but once in power still needs the support of the Assemblée nationale in order to get any laws passed.

At present Macron’s La République en Marche party is the biggest block in the parliament, and by forming an alliance with two other parties has commanded a large majority which has enabled Macron to pass legislation relatively easily over the past five years.

This could change in June. 

If a president’s party doesn’t have a majority in the Assemblée nationale, they can try to form an alliance with other parties in order to create a block that will, mostly, vote in favour of the government’s reforms.

If this is impossible then a cohabitation is created. This means that the leader of the largest block in the parliament offers to serve as Prime Minister to the president – even if they are members of opposing parties.

It’s far from an ideal situation for the president, but it means that they at least have a voting majority in the parliament, even if they will almost certainly be forced to make some policy concessions in exchange for the support of their prime minister.

This happened to leftwinger François Mitterand, who was forced to appoint Jacques Chirac as his prime minister after a crushing defeat in parliamentary elections. Chirac went on to be elected president, only to be forced to appoint the leftwing Lionel Jospin as his prime minister when he too was unable to get a majority in the parliamentary elections.

In both cases, however, the defeats at parliamentary level came several years after they won the presidency, the system has since been changed so that both presidential and parliamentary elections are on a five-year cycle.

What is the rate of turn out like?

Voter turn-out for the parliamentary elections in France is far lower than for the presidential election.

In 2017 for example only 42.6 percent of voters cast a ballot in the second round of the parliamentary elections, well below the 74 percent who voted in the second round of the presidential election.

Will they ever introduce proportional representation in parliamentary elections?

There has been increasing pressure in recent years to reform the parliamentary elections system to introduce proportional representation or at least an element of it.

Parties like Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally, formerly National Front) favour it because it would in theory give them a greater share of MPs in parliament and therefor more influence.

Political analysts have long claimed the electoral system and lack of representation for fringe groups is one of the reasons that has lead to high abstention rates in elections as well as unrest on the streets such as the Gilets Jaunes crisis.

In 2017 Macron had promised to introduce PR but then the government failed to go through with it. Perhaps memories are still fresh of when France did introduce it to the parliamentary elections back in 1986. This led to the election of 35 National Front MPs which caused uproar among traditional left and right parties. The policy was then ditched in 1988 – just two years later.

Those who argue against it says it hampers the government’s ability to put in place reforms and leads to a blockage in which a president can get little done.

A proposed solution is to have an element of PR introduced but not for all 577 deputies to be elected using the system. Whether this reform ever happens or not, only time will tell.

What about the Senate?

All new laws in France go before both the Assemblée nationale and the Sénat, but if after several readings the two houses cannot agree, the Assemblée nationale has the final say.

The Senate is currently dominated by the centre-right Les Républicains party, and the next Senate elections are not until 2023. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

ELECTIONS

Explained: The party manifestos for France’s snap elections

As the formal campaign period begins in France's snap legislative elections, here's a look at the manifestos of the main parties and what they mean for foreigners living here.

Explained: The party manifestos for France's snap elections

Monday marks the start of the official campaign period for France’s snap legislative elections – a brief two-week campaign before the first round of voting on Sunday, June 30th followed by round two a week later on July 7th. 

Here’s a look at the manifestos of the main parties, with a particular emphasis on any immigration policies that would affect the lives of foreigners in France, or those planning to move here some day.

Renaissance

First up is Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party Renaissance – its platform was unveiled by Macron himself in a televised press conference, with a more detailed programme unveiled later by prime minister Gabriel Attal.

The party is at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to the programme, since its main policy goals are already known and it is limited by financial and other factors from announcing any especially bold new goals. The result was that Macron in his launch speech was left to talk about policies that had already been announced or vague goals such as holding a ‘national debate’ on France’s secularism policy.

Macron also framed the election as a ‘battle against extremism’ saying: “I hope that when the time comes, men and women of goodwill who will have been able to say no to the extremes will come together… to build a shared, sincere project that is useful to the country.” 

Programme – Much of the programme will be familiar since Macron was after all re-elected in 2022 and set out his five-year plan at the time. On the economy and the environment, the president said that his party would continue to grow foreign investment in France, cut unemployment and work towards the ‘green reindustrialisation’ of the country – a Macron pet project to create jobs and industry in France by embracing new green technologies such as car batteries.

He also re-committed to France’s domestic nuclear energy programme, and to France’s strong support for Ukraine.

Among the new parts were a ‘great national debate’ on the tricky subject of French state secularism (laïcité) and limits to access to screens for children – as recommended by a commission of experts.

Attal also unveiled some new measures on the key issue of the cost-of-living, with promises to triple the ‘Macron bonus’ paid to some employees from €3,000 a year to €10,000, index-linking pensions to inflation, reducing utility bills by 15 percent next winter and help for parents in buying school supplies.

He also proposes axing the notaire fee (in reality a kind of tax on home purchases) for any property purchased for under €250,000 and setting up an extra renovation fund to give grants to property-owners to repairs and energy works.

Some ongoing Macronist legislation such as changing the law on assisted dying has been interrupted on its journey through parliament, but would likely restart if the party wins a majority.

The party’s programme makes no specific suggestions for changes to the immigration system, but it did just introduce a new immigration law in January that – among other things – introduces a language test requirement for certain types of residency cards and raises the language level required for French citizenship through naturalisation.

Front Populaire

France’s largest leftist political parties have struck an election pact not to stand candidates against each other – in order to avoid dividing the leftist vote.

This means that the hard-left La France Insoumise will field 229 candidates, the centre-left Parti Socialiste will field 175, the Green EELV 92 and the Communists 50. It also means that the parties are presenting a single, joint manifesto under the banner of Nouveau Front Populaire – which has been the subject of much argument and some awkward compromises.

Programme – much of the programme is concerned with cancelling recent Macronist laws. Among the laws it says it will cancel are the new immigration bill – the one that introduces French language tests for certain types of residency card and raises the language level required for French citizenship.

The manifesto also proposes introducing a 10-year carte de séjour residency card ‘as the standard card’ – at present the standard model is for one-year cards initially and then move on to five-year and then 10-year cards, although there are significant variations based on your personal status (eg working, student, retired or family member).

Also set for the chop are Macron’s changes to unemployment benefits plus a cancellation of the price rises in electricity and gas and the reintroduction of the ‘wealth tax’ scrapped by Macron in 2018. Meanwhile the pension age would be dropped down to 60 (cancelling Macron’s law raising it from 62 to 64 and dropping it another two years).

The party would also raise the Smic (minimum wage) to €1,600 a month.

The environment forms a key part of the manifesto with a range of green incentives plus tax and financing rules that would clamp down on fossil fuels.

On foreign policy there are some delicately worded compromises since views on Ukraine and Gaza had previously split the leftist alliance. The group promises to “unfailingly defend the sovereignty and freedom of the Ukrainian people” including by delivering weapons and writing off debt. On Gaza, the party would recognise the Palestinian state and embargo arms supplies to Israel.

Policy towards the EU – a topic that divides the left – is left to one side.

Rassemblement National

The far-right Rassemblement National party will be joined by at least some candidates from the right-wing Les Republicains party, although the internal party divide over that pact will see some LR candidates independently. 

Programme – the party makes immigration one of its key concerns, with a commitment to “drastically reduce legal and illegal immigration and deport foreign criminals” listed as a priority.

The programme opposes both non-economic migration and family reunification – no detail is given on changes to the visa or residency card system in this area, but it seems likely that anyone wanting to move for non-work related reasons (eg retirees) would face restrictions. Likewise spouse visas would be affected by any changes to family reunification rules.

Non-French citizens would only be able to access social benefits such as housing benefits or caring allowances after working in France for five years and there would also be a ‘French first’ preference for access to employment and social housing.

Residency permits would be withdrawn for any non-French citizens who have been unemployed for more than one year.

Asylum claims would exclusively be processed outside France.

When it comes to French citizenship, the party wants to abolish the droit du sol, which gives the right to French citizenship to children born in France to foreign parents and limit access to citizenship for adults “on the basis of merit and assimilation” – it’s not clear how this would differ from the current system where candidates must already prove that they speak French and understand French culture and politics.

The party also has a strong line on law and order – doubling the number of magistrates, increasing fines for certain offences, adding those convicted of street harassment to the sex offenders’ register and creating a “presumption of legitimate defence” for police officers who kill or injure members of the public.

This article is part of a series on election platforms in France, we will look at each party’s economic platform in a separate piece. You can follow all the latest election news in our election section HERE, and you can also sign up here to receive our bi-weekly election breakdown during the campaign period

SHOW COMMENTS