The French electoral system: Reform provokes outrage

Date: 15/02/03

Many French politicians are appalled by the prospect of a two-party system

WHAT idea could unite in opposition the extreme right, the extreme left and a good part of the moderate mainstream, both left and right? This week France's government - with a huge centre-right majority in parliament - came up with the answer: change the rules for France's elections to its regional councils and the European Parliament. By raising the thresholds for winning a seat, the government hopes for “stable majorities” and so, it argues, a more “effective” democracy.

Maybe. But the likely price is the electoral death of small parties, from the National Front to the Trotsky-minded Revolutionary Communist League, and a real choice for the voters of just two parties: the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), the new catch-all party on the right, and the Socialist Party on the left. The reason is that in regional elections a candidate will have to win the support of at least 10% of registered voters to pass from the first round to the decisive second round. Hitherto the hurdle has been just 5% of the votes cast. Given abstentions, the new hurdle will amount to about 20%. In elections to the European Parliament, with one round of voting, candidates will no longer be listed nationally. Instead, there will be eight regional lists, with seats divided by proportional representation among those parties that have won at least 5% of the votes cast.

No wonder, when they do the maths, the small parties see doom. The National Front, for example, won 270 seats in France's regional councils in 1998 but says it would have won “not even a tenth” of them under the new rules. Meanwhile, though the Socialists actually stand to benefit from the change, they see a chance to embarrass the UMP by taking up the cause of the smaller parties. Hence the number of amendments - almost 12,000 - that greeted the law when it was presented to the National Assembly this week.

But the amendments were a waste of paper. Seeing the impossibility of pushing the proposal through parliament on any reasonable calendar, Jean-Pierre Raffarin's government decided to invoke the constitution's Article 49-3 and pass it into law by making it a vote of confidence. The Sud Ouest newspaper mischievously points out that under the new law Mr Raffarin in 1998 would not have won his seat on the regional council of his cherished Poitou-Charentes.

Many French politicians are appalled by the prospects of a two-party system for regional and European Parliament elections.

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