Proportional to the legislative elections: from left to right, who is for, who is against?

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Proportional to the legislative elections from left to right who

His fight has been going on for years. Just re-elected for three years at the head of the MoDem, this Sunday March 24, François Bayrou once again pleaded for the introduction of proportional representation in the legislative elections. Before his party, meeting at a congress in Blois (Loir-et-Cher), he also raised the possibility of a referendum to have this modification of the electoral law adopted.

“I am convinced that we will get there. That after so many years of fighting, so many difficulties to make the obvious heard, a window has opened and that we will be able to find a resolution to this question which is vital for the future of French democracy”, declared François Bayrou.

His speech followed the intervention of the President (Renaissance) of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, who also advocates the establishment of proportional representation in departments with at least 11 deputies (i.e. 11 territories: those of Île-de-France except Essonne and Val-d’Oise, as well as the Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Rhône, Gironde, Bouches-du-Rhône).

In an interview with Figaro published Friday March 22, Yaël Braun-Pivet believes that “it is time to honor” the commitment of Emmanuel Macron, who had promised in 2017 to implement this voting method in the legislative elections. The introduction of a proportional dose appeared in the constitutional revision abandoned in 2018 and 2019. However, if the Head of State said he was in favor of it during the 2022 presidential campaign, the measure did not appear in his re-election program.

The Insoumis and the Greens in favor

As a reminder, the introduction of a “dose” of proportional, as desired by François Bayrou and Yaël Braun-Pivet, means that a share of the seats in an assembly is allocated according to the number of votes collected and not only mostly to the winner. This system would allow political forces to be “better represented”, according to the President of the Assembly.

An observation shared by the Insoumis, and in particular by their leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. While buried for several years, the debate around proportional representation had already resurfaced in the National Assembly in April 2021, thanks to a text tabled by the former presidential candidate. There Law proposition had only a single article, providing for a return to the voting method tested in France during the 1986 elections on the basis of departmental lists. The only way, according to the leader of the Insoumis, to “repair democracy”.

The text was not passed, but the main stakeholders suspected it. “It will be interesting to hear the marchers explain why they cannot keep their promises,” said the LFI deputy, Mathilde Panot, to Franceinfoeven before the bill is studied in the Hemicycle.

Among the Greens too, we deplored the president’s renunciation on this issue. “Would the President have a problem with democracy?” they asked, in a communicated. The Europe ecology party The Greens has long advocated the establishment of this voting method. The measure appeared in particular in the 21 proposals formulated by the party and intended for the Head of State, with a view to the Saint-Denis Meetings on August 30. The environmentalist party then demanded the return of proportional representation “before 2027”.

“France is the only country in the European Union where legislative elections do not include a dose of proportional representation, de facto preventing the proper representation of the political sensitivities of citizens,” we can read on the EELV website.

The National Rally, historically for

For once, this measure, desired by both the Insoumis and the Greens, is also desired by Marine Le Pen. Having just qualified for the second round of the 2022 presidential election, the latter had promised to establish, if elected, proportional representation for “two thirds” of French deputies. For the former RN candidate, who then deplored the lack of seats for the National Rally in Parliament (only “eight parliamentarians out of 925”), electing deputies proportionally would allow a “representation of the sensitivities expressed in the country “.

A less radical promise than the one that the RN put forward five years ago. In 2017, Marine Le Pen advocated the establishment of full proportional representation in legislative elections, “even if it means putting a premium on the political movement that comes first to ensure stability”. This idea has been strong within the party since its creation in 1972. This voting method had also been favorable to the National Front during the legislative elections of 1986: the far-right party then had 35 deputies, a record which does not was only equaled in 2022.

The PS mixed, LR fiercely opposed

However, for the Socialist Party, this voting method must be handled with caution. Already, as the 2022 legislative elections approach and while the proposed law on the establishment of proportional representation was under debate in the National Assembly, the first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, called for restraint: ” A voting method, we do not fiddle with it one year before an electoral deadline”, he estimated, in the program “Sunday in politics” on France 3, in February 2021.

If he is not opposed to a dose of proportionalism, he said he was “skeptical” about integral proportionalism, in an interview given to The Express, last May. “We must allow elected officials to embody the nation, and to do so over time to be judged on an assessment and not in the heat of the moment,” argued Olivier Faure.

On the other hand, it is a frank and categorical “no” from the Republicans, who have always been hostile to this voting method. First, because it involves “geographical” constraints: “There would therefore be de facto need to redistribute all the constituencies”, pointed out the party on his websitein 2021.

But also political issues, particularly if full proportional representation was implemented. This “would be synonymous with the return to the exacerbated multi-party system and to the assembly regime of the Fourth Republic where the innumerable conflicts within the hemicycle between numerous rival parliamentary groups ended up endangering the executive itself”.

For the right, proportional representation raises the specter of the Fourth Republic, a symbol of political instability. There would be a “Parliament without a majority”, warned François Fillon, in the Sunday Newspaperin 2017. “It would be a real casus belli“, added Christian Jacob, in the same weekly.



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