The future Members of the European Parliament will be elected between June 6 and 9, 2024 in the 27 countries of the European Union. In France, political forces are preparing for the vote which will take place on Sunday June 9.
The political forces are beginning to put themselves in working order for the European elections. The election scheduled for spring 2024 is already at the heart of the news, particularly political news. And for good reason, it serves as mid-term elections two years after the start of Emmanuel Macron’s second term. If the majority hopes to prove that it is still the first political force in the country, all the others, on the left and on the right, want to pull out of the game to show that they still carry weight in political life. But if the race is about to begin, two camps have a head start and one of them is already leading by far…
France and its various political groups can claim 81 seats in the European Parliament and all of them will be up for grabs in the next election. Each party will therefore present a list of as many candidates carried by a head of the list, i.e. the figure around which it wishes to unite. Most of the parties have already made a choice: on the left the Nupes forces will go in dispersed order after the general rejection of the proposal of rebellious France to present a common list; on the right, it was again François-Xavier Bellamy who was chosen and at the National Rally this role fell to Jordan Bardella. Only the majority has still not decided, suffering refusals from those they want to put at the top of the list and not finding convincing profiles to replace them. This vagueness harms the presidential camp which is already significantly behind the party of Marine Le Pen according to the latest polls.
The 27 member states of the European Union will organize their elections between June 6 and 9, 2024. For France, the European elections have been set on a single date, Sunday June 9. Unlike municipal, legislative or even presidential elections, European elections do not take place over a single day. Polling stations will be open from 8 a.m. and will close, depending on the size of the municipality, between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.
From June 8, French people residing on the American continent will start to vote, as well as several overseas departments: Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana and French Polynesia.
Political parties will have to submit their final lists between May 6 and 17 to the Ministry of the Interior. The official campaign for the European elections will take place the week of May 27 to June 7.
Even if the lists are not yet finalized, most of the top candidates have already been revealed. Since May 2023, polls have followed one another, carried out by different institutes and all predict a victory for the National Rally. According to studies, the party led by Jordan Bardella is credited with between 26 and 31% of the votes. It would be ahead of the Macronist coalition Ensemble (Renaissance, MoDem, Horizons), which would obtain between 18 and 20% of the votes.
For the last step of the podium, the match is played between LR, EELV, the PS and LFI. The four parties stand, at this stage, in a pocket handkerchief, between 6 and 10% each. On the left, a union of Nupes could make it possible to claim third or even second place with more or less 25% of voting intentions, but the parties refused to ally as proposed by LFI.
The official lists will not be submitted until May but several political parties have already announced the name of the person who would lead them.
Last summer Reconquête, the party founded by Eric Zemmour, announced that its list would be led by the former MP Marion Maréchal. The announcement was confirmed on Wednesday September 6 by Eric Zemmour himself in the columns of Le Figaro. For the National Rally, it is none other than the president of the party, Jordan Bardellawho will lead the list, just like in 2019.
The Republicans, for their part, fear being eclipsed by the European Parliament after the disaster that was the 2019 election for the right. They still decided to trust again François-Xavier Bellamy.
As for the presidential camp, nothing is yet official and there is even vagueness that reigns. Julien Denormandie, former Minister of Agriculture, was Emmanuel Macron’s first choice to carry the list, but he publicly declined the proposal. Since then, several names have been mentioned: Olivier Véran, MEP Valérie Hayer or even the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves le Drian.
On the left, the socialists have decided to renew their confidence in Raphaël Glucksmannwho is not a member of the Socialist Party but of the social-democratic movement Place Publique.
To La France insoumise, Manon Aubry, the co-president of the Left group (GUE/NGL), was officially invested. The latter even hopes to bring, once again, a union list of the left, but the other Nupes parties want independent candidacies. On the side of Europe Ecologie les Verts, Marie Toussaint will be at the front of the ballot. The PCF chose Léon Deffontaines.
Some personalities have also indicated their candidacy for the head of minor lists: Nathalie Arthaud for Lutte Ouvrière, Guillaume Lacroix for the Radical Left Party, Florian Philippot for Les Patriotes, François Asselineau for the Union Populaire Républicaine (UPR), Hélène Thouy for the animalist party, or the president of the hunting federation Willy Schraen for a “Rural Alliance” list and the former candidate for the environmentalist primary Jean-Marc Governatori for an “Ecology at the Center” list, Jean-Christophe Fromantin for “ Notre Europe” – Territories on the move, Caroline Zorn for the Pirate Party, Sven Franck for Volt… But the last list announced is the one that singer Francis Lalanne wishes to draw up under the name “Union of the Resistance” with the running mate the comedian Dieudonné.
In 2024, the French are called upon to elect 81 European deputies, compared to 79 in 2019. The distribution of seats by country varies from one election to another depending on the demographics of each member state. Additionally, 2024 will mark the first election since the UK left. MEPs are elected for a five-year term. Since 2014, France has voted using a multi-member proportional ballot with closed lists: each party presents a unique list of 81 names. Seats will be allocated in proportion to the number of votes collected for each list. However, a threshold of 5% is set, below which no seats are allocated.