Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Explainer: How do French parliamentary elections work (and why was June 11 historic)?
Explainer: How do French parliamentary elections work (and why was June 11 historic)?
Apr 9, 2025 4:51 PM

On Sunday, France held the first round of its parliamentary elections. After the June 11, 2017, the nation is poised to usher in a new era of French political history.

How is French Parliament divided?

The French Parliament is divided into two houses: the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) and the Senate (Sénat). The general public votes to elect members of the National Assembly, known as députés. The Senate is elected separately by grands électeurs, such as local elected officials.

The National Assembly has 577 seats: 536 constituencies within territorial France, 27 districts overseas, and 11 seats representing expatriate French voters. A party must win 289 seats to obtain a majority. Each constituency represents 125,000 people.

How do general elections to the French Parliament work?

All registered voters may vote for National Assembly in a two-round process. To be elected in the first round, a candidate must win 50 percent of the vote in any given constituency – and turnout must exceed 25 percent of all registered voters. If both criteria are met, there is no second round. Such es are rare in the multi-party environment of French politics, where some constituencies have as many as 20 candidates.

If no one reaches that threshold, the two candidates with the highest vote totals move on to the second round of elections. Additional candidates may appear on the second ballot if they won the votes of at least 12.5 percent of all registered voters in the constituency (not 12.5 percent of those who voted in that election). More than two candidates frequently advance to the second round of elections.

Why are there so many candidates?

France has a multi-party parliamentary democracy, rather than a winner-take-all system like the United States, allowing parties with minor support to win national representation. Thus, the French political spectrum currently includes everything from the occasional free market devotee to members of the National Front and the French Communist Party.

Parties also have a financial incentive to contest races. The party receives €40,000 from the government for every party member elected to Parliament, as well as at least €1 for each voter if candidates garner one percent of the vote in 50 constituencies or more.

What were the results of the June 11, 2017, election?

President Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche (Republic on the Move) Party, formed just over one year ago, won 32 percent of the vote. It is forecast to win a lopsided majority of between 390 and 450 of the National Assembly’s 577 seats.

What about the rest of the parties?

The nation’s center-Right party, Les Républicains, won 22 percent of the vote.

Two parties essentially tied for third place: The far-Left coalition of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed (La France Insoumise) Party and the French Communist Party, on the one hand, and Marine Le Pen’s National Front on the other. Both garnered 13 percent of votes. The National Front is expected to win between three and 10 seats, including Marine Le Pen representing Pas-de-Calais. But her party won 50 percent of the vote in 40 constituencies in the French presidential election. FN also fell well short the 15 MPs necessary to form a parliamentary group in the National Assembly, giving it a broader platform.

The Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste) of outgoing President François Hollande has been devastated. It won 9.5 percent of the vote, going from 289 members to an estimated maximum of 30 and its presidential candidate, Leader Benoît Hamon, lost his own parliamentary race. The party’s remnants aredivided on whether to cooperate with Macron, who had served in Hollande’s government, or to align with Mélenchon’s coalition.

Why is the result historic?

The June 11 elections shattered the status quo that had held sway for decades. Control of the National Assembly has alternated between the center-Right party, now known as Les Républicains, and the Socialist Party. On June 11, both bined fielded fewer votes than President Emmanuel Macron’s newly formed La République En Marche Party. Many of its members, like Macron, lack elective political experience.

The election is also noteworthy for its low voter turnout. Only 48.7 percent of the nation’s 47 million potential voters cast a ballot in the first round of the 2017 National Assembly election, according to the French Interior Ministry. That is a record low since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958. Political rivals say the low turnout undermines Macron’s legitimacy, and Le Pen has said the low voter participation rate calls the electoral rules themselves into question.

The number of multi-party runoff elections has also plummeted. In 2012, at least three candidates made it to the second round of elections in 34 districts. This year, there will be only one such race.

What do the results mean for the France’s future?

Macron could begin his presidency with the largest parliamentary majority since Charles De Gaulle in 1968. That makes it easier to enact his proposal to reform the stagnant French labor market by making it easier for employers to hire or fire employees. The process currently takes a year, and employers must prove in a judicial setting that they fired an employee with good cause.

Macron has also voiced support for tax and pension reforms. He proposed slashing the corporate tax and limiting the tax on total assets (a wealth tax known as the ISF).But he would expand the welfare state by extending some of its benefits to the self-employed.

Macron is a Europhile dedicated to a more closely integrated Europe that handsgreater control of its affairs to the European Union.

“France is back,” said Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Sunday.

When is the second round of elections?

In 2017, the second round of elections will be held on June 18.

Schaull. This photo has been cropped.CC BY-SA 2.0.)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Live Blogging from Bryn Mawr Next Week
I’m leaving tomorrow to attend the Advanced Studies in Freedom seminar sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies and hosted at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. The conference runs from July 8-14, and will “take a deeper look at topics such as spontaneous order, social development, and public choice, considering them in both a historical context and in light of issues today.” Seminar faculty include Randy Barnett of Boston University (Law), Stephen Davies of Manchester Metropolitan University (History), Sandy Ikeda...
Initial Post from the World Meeting of Families, Valencia
Blog post: July 5, 2005. 11:30 PM, Valencia time. I am writing from the Fifth World Meeting of Families, held this year in Valencia Spain. This periodic event is sponsored by the Pontifical Council on the Family, chaired by the formidable Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo. I e at the invitation of His Eminence to give a presentation on The Family, the Social Doctrine of the Church and Social Questions. In addition to the Theological and Pastoral Congress, the Meeting also...
How Green Were the Nazis?
A new review on H-German by John Alexander Williams of Bradley University examines the edited collection of essays, How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment, and Nation in the Third Reich (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2005). The volume’s editors contend in part that “the green policies of the Nazis were more than a mere episode or aberration in environmental history at large. They point to larger meanings and demonstrate with brutal clarity that conservationism and environmentalism are not and...
Second Post from the World Meeting of Families
Late evening, July 6. My session finally took place today at about 4:15 pm. Cardinal Martino presented the Compendium of the Social Doctrine. He pointed out that the family was given pride of place in the document, listed before the economy or government or international relations or the environment. Most memorable statement: “The family is not a function of society or the state. State and society are functions of the family.” Madame Boutin made her presentation. She is an plished...
The Spirit of Nationalism
The spirit of nationalism is a positive thing in my view. Most people inherently love their country. Christians should not be alarmed by this very normal human emotion. I shared in it by observing the Fourth of July parade in munity. As the band played and the fire trucks blared their sirens I found myself feeling a sense of pride about munity and my country. I watched the politicians go by, seeking recognition and votes, and thought to myself, “Elections...
The Digital Ad Fontes!
The Drexel University Libraries have posted video and audio from the Scholarly Communications Symposium convened earlier this year. The event, held on April 28, 2006, included a presentation by me, “The Digital Ad Fontes!: Scholarly Research Trends in the Humanities,” as well as Rosalind Reid, “Access, Inertia, and Innovation: Turbulent Times in Scientific Publishing” (Dr. Blaise Cronin was ill and unable to attend). The video is divided into two parts and is archived in the streaming content library (scroll down...
NBER on Globalization and Poverty
From the abstract of a new paper from the NBER, “Globalization and Poverty,” by Ann Harrison: “This essay surveys the evidence on the linkages between globalization and poverty. I focus on two measures of globalization: trade and international capital flows…. The collected evidence suggests that globalization produces both winners and losers among the poor. The fact that some poor individuals are made worse off by trade or financial integration underscores the need for carefully targeted safety nets.” ...
Don Bosch: Best of the Blogs
Acton PowerBlog contributor Don Bosch (aka The Evangelical Ecologist) had his post, “Guilt Free Ecology,” picked up and recognized by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in their feature “Best of the Blogs,” on June 18. Good job, Don! ...
Cardinal Caffarra opened the conference
Earlier this week at the World Meeting of Families: On July 4, the opening day,the program began at 4 PM and was scheduled to go until 8:00. But the opening day had a cloud hanging over it. A subway accident in Valencia claimed the lives of 41 people and injured many others. The conference was originally scheduled to have ing speeches by the major of Valencia, Mrs. Rita Barbera, and the Archbishop of Valencia, the Most Rev. Agustin Garcia-Gascon Vicente....
Estonia and Centesimus Annus: A Universal Message of Hope
Dr. Mart Laar, former prime minister of Estonia, discusses the relevance for the papal encyclical Centesimus Annus for Europe today. “The message of Centesimus Annus is not a message of left or right. It is a universal message of hope. We can see these same ideas in most groups working on the future of Europe. The only problem is in finding political leaders ready to implement them in reality,” he writes. Read Dr. Mart Laar’s mentary here. ...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved