Our Blog - French/European Election - June/July 2024

This year is a political dream or a political nightmare, depending on your leanings. Obviously, there is the closely-watched saga of the 2024 US Presidential election. In early June, there was the planned European Elections for the European Parliament and, due to that election, a snap-election for the French legislature. I'll skip talking about the US Presidential election and go straight to the European election. I've had to do a bit of research on these topics, so hopefully I will have it correct!

European Parliament

The European Parliament is one of the legislative bodies of the EU and, together with the Council of Ministers, adopts European Legislation. For me, it is easy to try to think of it like the US Congress, which is also bicameral and made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The European Parliament has 720 members, while the Council has 27 ministers (one per member state in the EU). The number of seats per EU member state in Parliament is allocated based on population with a maximum of 96 seats and a minimum of 6 seats per EU member state. Currently, Germany, France, and Italy have the 3 highest number of seats, as they have the highest populations. It isn't specifically a math equation either, since for example, Germany had 1 seat per 843K (give or take) people while Malta had 1 seat per 70K people.

In France, there were 38 different political parties with candidates in the voting but only 7 ended up with members in the 81-strong French delegation. Most of the polls in advance of the election correctly predicted a rise in the extreme-right although most people were surprised with just how poorly Emmanuel Macron's "centrist" party did. Compared to the previous election, the extreme-right gained 7 seats to lead the French delegation with 30 seats, and the left-wing gaining 7 (to 13) and the extreme-left gaining 3 (to 9). In comparison, the centrist parties lost 10 seats (to 13).

French Parliament "snap" election

Soon after the European Parliament election showed that Macron's party had done so poorly compared to the extreme-right, French President Macron called for the dissolution of parliament and snap legislative elections. Normally, the 5-year term of the current parliament would have ended in 2027, but the French Constitution allows the President to end the term early but he can only do this once per year. The idea is that if there is an institutional crisis or gridlock, such as when the President and the parliamentary majority are unable to work together, seating a new Parliament may allow the government to get out of this gridlock.

Is this unprecedented? No, not really, although it is a very odd thing for Americans. The dissolution of Parliament in France has happened 5 times. President de Gaulle did it twice, in 1962 and 1968, and succeeded in seating a Parliament where his party had the majority. President François Mitterrand also did it twice, in 1981 and 1988. In 1981, he came away with a strong majority, but in 1988, he was only able to get a narrow 7-seat majority. The last time was in 1977 when President Jacques Chirac tried it 2 years into his Presidency even though he had a slim majority. He wanted to strengthen the majority to govern more freely, but the gamble backfired when a left-wing coalition got the majority and caused a "cohabitation". This is when the President and the Prime Minister (who comes from the majority party) are not from the same party.

Most people were actually quite surprised by Macron's decision and saw this as a desperate move and most predict that it will end badly for Macron. Most polls predicted that the extreme-right would gain the majority in Parliament and potentially, would have the next Prime Minister from their party. Some parties in the left-wing, seeing this, came together in a coalition to see if they could somehow wrestle the majority from the right-wing.

So what *IS* the French Parliament? Similar to the US, it has 2 houses: the Senate and the National Assembly. The Senate has 349 members while the Assembly has 577 members. Unlike the US, the Senate is not directly elected by the population, while the Assembly is. For the National Assembly, each member is elected by the registered voters with a constituency (like a congressional district) of approximately 100,000 residents. There are some districts that are larger or smaller than that, but they are meant to be somewhat similar. The members of the Senate, on the other hand, are "indirectly" elected, that is to say, they are elected by regional, departmental, and city councillors (like mayors, for example).

The parliament members are elected using a 2-round system that is similar to the Presidential election, but not exactly the same. In the first round, you can have as many candidates for an individual seat as the parties want to put on the ballot. There is a somewhat complex algorithm for the next part, but to make it very simple ... a parliament member CAN be elected in the 1st round if they receive a majority of the votes cast and a certain percentage of the registered voters. If they don't get that, then voters cast ballots in the 2nd round for one of the top 2 or top 3 (again, depending on percentages of votes cast and registered voters). This last part, the registered voters, is a difficult concept to grasp initially ... and hard to explain in words. But the details are not all that important to know, really :-)

Polls in advance of the first round were suggesting that it would be one of the highest voter turnouts in decades, so they estimated that there will be an unusually high number of 2nd round races that have 3 candidates. In addition, several of the extreme-left parties joined into a new coalition called the New Popular Front in an attempt to increase their share of the vote (so 3 parties at 10% equals a single party at 30%).

One other interesting thing about French elections in general is that there is somewhat of a "media blackout" prior to the polls opening, lasting until polls close. France has complex election rules that limit each party's airtime during campaign season and require a media blackout over election weekend. The theory is that they guarantee "fairness", while limiting the risk of overexposure. However, it creates an odd situation where journalists have to avoid reporting on the biggest news story in the country at the moment it is unfolding. So starting on Friday prior to the Sunday elections, the media was not allowed to talk about a set of things related to the election. There is no political campaigning, so nobody was in the market on Saturday morning handing out flyers like there was the previous Saturday. No polling can occur either, so the "last polls" before the election would have been on Friday.

Outcome of 1st round

As expected, voter turnout was pretty high ... 66.71%, the highest since 1997. These elections followed the European elections, with the extreme-right leading with around 33%, followed by the left coalition at 28%, the centrists (the current Presidential party alliances) getting 21%, and the rest going to to various miscellaneous smaller candidates. There were a set of smaller parties who also decided not to have any candidates in these elections, such as the Animalist Party (only 1.1% of the vote in 2022). The graph colors are red/light red for the extreme-right and other right, blue/light blue for extreme-left and other left, and yellow for the centrists. Out 577 seats, 76 Parliament Members (MPs) were elected in the 1st round. As expected, there was a very high rate of 3-way contests (306) and 4-way contests (5) for the 2nd round. In the press conference after the 1st round results were announced, both the centrists and the extreme-left coalition announced that some of their candidates would withdraw in an attempt to block the extreme-right from getting an absolute majority. For example, in a result where the percentage of votes was 40%/35%/25%, if the candidate in 3rd place threw their support behind the 2nd place candidate, that 60% would win over the 40%, assuming the voting in the 2nd round matched the 1st round. Due to this, 216 candidates withdrew, leaving only 89 3-way races and 2 4-way races in the 2nd round.

Outcome of 2nd round

Turnout for the 2nd round was also quite high (compared to previous legislative elections), and just a bit higher than the 1st round. Everybody was glued to the TV, to watch literally a countdown to see the projections/results. The New Popular Front actually won MORE seats than the Far Right alliance, but also the Centrists (called the Presidential Majority) actually came in 2nd place. This was quite a bit different than what people thought coming out of the 1st round. They polls were actually a bit off, as they were projecting the right-wing to have a relative majority but not an absolute majority. The 3 main parties all will have over 100 seats but less than 200 seats, and 289 is required for an absolute majority. When the results came out at 8pm, they were projections only, and give a range of seats for each party (like 120-150 seats).

Overnight, the final tallies were completed and this is what Wikipedia showed as the makeup of the new National Assembly:

Note that the colors are not what we think of them in the US .. Red is the left-wing, blue is the right-wing, and yellow are centrists.

182 seats: The biggest block, that is in red, is the New Popular Front (NPF), which is the electoral alliance created in June. The main parties in that are France Unbowed (in French, La France Insoumise or LFI), the Socialist Part, the Ecologists, and the French Communist Party. Within that block of 180 seats, LFI has only a thin edge over the Socialist Party.

Moving right, between the red and yellow blocks are a few dots that are pink and green .. those are the seats won by the left but not part of the NPF alliance.

168 seats: the centrists, which is called "Ensemble pour la Republique" (Together for the Republic), which also a coalition but it was created in 2021, so not specifically for this election. It is mostly talked of as the party of the president or the "presidential majority" party. They were the big losers in the election, losing 86 seats, but in fact, they ended up with quite a few more seats than predicted.

Then you have the right-wing seats: 45 seats of the Republicans (bright blue), the 15 seats of the miscellaneous right (light blue), and then the 143 seats of the National Rally and its allies (dark blue).

As you can see, no party (or alliance) has the absolute majority (289 seats). This means either a lot of cooperation, or nothing will get done.

The next step is to appoint a prime minister. Although the President has the power to appoint any individual as prime minister, in practice, he nominates someone from the majority party. This is because the National Assembly has what they call a "motion of no confidence", where the national assembly can basically vote to remove the prime minister (similar to what they have done in the UK). So if the President appoints someone from a minor party, the party with the absolute majority would just do a motion of no confidence and vote them out immediately. In this case, there is no absolute majority, so the current thinking is that someone from the New Popular Front will be the next prime minister. But then the discussion is all around the WHO.

There are 4 parties in the NPF, but only a slight edge for France Unbowed over the Socialist Party. The leader of France Unbowed, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is pretty-much hated and certain people have said they would not allow him to be the PM. A set of people have talked about the leader of alliance partner Horizons Édouard Philippe, who has already been the PM for 3 years under Macron. After the results, Melenchon called on Macron to appoint the PM from the NPF, and former President Francois Hollande (from the Socialist Party, who won a seat in the National Assembly) said it wouldn't be him. Perhaps someone else from the Socialist Party, or someone else from LFI .... time will tell. How long will we wait? No idea, in fact. There is no timetable formally imposed on the President to ask the current government to resign nor to appoint a new one. Some people have suggested that it is best to wait until AFTER the Paris Olympics to name a new Prime Minister and then have the PM name his new cabinet, to give the Olympics the best chance of completing without too many problems. But, he also can't wait too long because the first session of the new National Assembly will be July 18th (8 days before the Opening Ceremonies) and they could immediately call for a Motion of no confidence. This motion, which could very well pass since the presidential camp now only has 168 seats out of 577, would lead to the immediate fall of the Attal government (the current PM and his cabinet).

Still waiting for a Prime Minister to be named ... stay tuned!