The legislative elections will take place in two rounds, on June 12 and 19. What are the rules for qualifying for the second round of this ballot?
Less than two months after the presidential election, the French are called upon to elect the deputies who will sit for five years in the National Assembly. Legislative elections are a strategic moment in French democratic life, since they determine whether the President of the Republic will have a majority in favor of his policy in Parliament. However, their voting system is not so simple. 6,293 candidates will submit themselves to the vote of voters during the first round of voting, Sunday June 12, 2022, in 577 constituencies. Among them, who will be allowed to compete in the 2nd round, scheduled for a week later? Here are the rules to remember to qualify.
All applications have been submitted since May 20. To appear in the first round of the legislative elections, it is enough to have French nationality and to be of legal age. On the other hand, to access the second round, the conditions are precise. The only configuration in which there is no second round is if one of the candidates obtains the absolute majority of the votes cast (more than 50%) from the 1st round. Apart from this situation, a second round is organized, which opposes at least two candidates. Here is the basic rule: are qualified in the 2nd round all the candidates who, in the 1st round, were able to collect the votes of at least 12.5% of the voters registered on the lists of the constituency. Thus, in the case of a high turnout, three or four candidates can sometimes qualify.
On the other hand, when abstention is high, it is more difficult to reach this 12.5%, which is based not on the actual number of voters, but on all registered voters. It therefore sometimes happens that only one candidate crosses this bar, or even that no candidate succeeds. In this case, the two leading candidates are automatically qualified for the second round. After the June 12 ballot, candidates who meet these conditions will have until Tuesday, June 14 to re-submit their candidacy to the prefecture. They will then officially participate in the 2nd round, which will take place on Sunday, June 19.