BBC


News Issues Background Parties Analysis TV/Radio/Web Interactive Forum Live
Header
Search Home

The French Electoral System

Prior to the election, the French National Assembly was divided between a conservative coalition including Chirac's Rally for the Republic (RPR) with 258 seats, its allies in the centrist Union for French Democracy (UDF) with 206 seats and a shaky left-wing alliance between the Socialists on 63 and the Communists with 24. Voters have sent the president a severe warning in the first round, giving the combined left a lead over the coalition.

The French electoral system relies on a complex procedure:

  • Any candidate who gains more than 50% of votes in his or her constituency in the first round is automatically elected. This clear majority victory accounts for very few of the 577 deputies eventually elected.
  • If no candidate gains more than half the vote, contenders with more than 12.5% go through to the second round of voting on June 1. If less than two candidates achieve 12.5% in a given constituency, then the two with the highest vote go through to the second round.
  • In the second round, the candidate with the highest vote in a constituency wins.
Many voters take advantage of the two-round system to record a protest vote or pick a fringe party in the first round, before switching to a more mainstream choice in the second.

In the week between the two rounds of voting, there is considerable jockeying for position, which usually results in several candidates with poor scores in the first round dropping out and offering endorsements to allied parties, which often leads to one credible candidate of the left and right emerging for the second ballot.

This year, the far right National Front has said it will fight on in the second round wherever it qualifies, laying the centre right open to the danger of a split vote allowing Socialist candidates to gain ground.



Diana, Princess of Wales, 1961-1997

Conference 97   Devolution   The Archive  
News | Issues | Background | Parties | Analysis | TV/Radio/Web
Interactive | Forum | Live | About This Site

 
© BBC 1997
politics97@bbc.co.uk