The argument has crept from roundabout to roundabout. It was on all the tractors that wanted to take Paris, at the beginning of the year. And here it is resurfacing, as the legislative elections approach: political decisions, the future of the nation, would be played out from citadel cities, by citizens deaf to the distant cries of the “real France”, that of below, of the countryside. Many French people seem to have convinced themselves of this, helped by the National Rally which is campaigning on this feeling of injustice.
On one side there would be walled-in city dwellers, who decide everything. And on the other, rural people left apart, forced to follow. However, in the National Assembly, an institution created precisely to carry the voice of the people in Paris, the countryside is far from being excluded, quite the contrary. Thanks to the way its seats are allocated, these territories are in reality very often favored in the final count. At least, statistically.
The prevailing rule in electoral divisions is that each department sends at least one deputy to the Palais Bourbon at the end of the legislative elections. A convention, designed precisely to not exclude any of these administrative provinces from the final photo, at the end of the vote. But this principle also has the side effect of generating significant disparities in representation, which is not without consequences on political life.
Much better seats for campaigns
In fact, the rule favors very sparsely populated areas, despite those that are particularly populated. An example: on July 7, the winner of the election in Lozère, the least populated department, will leave with the mission of representing 75,000 people, according to INSEE. This is well below the average, which is approximately one MP for 120,000 people. The 11th constituency of Val-de-Marne will choose one representative for 116,000 people, or 30% more, for example.
Same observation for the Hautes-Alpes. Two deputies will represent the interests of 141,000 mountain people in Paris. The 1st constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis, as populated, will, conversely, only have one elected official for it. These differences can be very significant. With 6,000 inhabitants represented, the seat of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon is, in fact, 28 times better off than that of the 5th constituency of Loire-Atlantique, which has only one deputy for 167,000 inhabitants.
So many differences, known to scientists for a long time. This was notably the finding of a study, published in 2012 in the journal French Politics. This showed that the latest reform of electoral boundaries, effective since 2010, has reinforced some of these differences, despite the softening of the rules. Before this date, these reserved not one, but two seats for each department. But since then, the rural exodus has continued, as has immigration, two phenomena that can worsen these disparities.
In total, “around a third of the constituencies are over-represented. And these are most of the time the least dense,” explains David Saulpic, researcher and author on the subject in the French journal of political science. From there to say that the countryside has an advantage? Not exactly. If these differences influence the final result, it is difficult to know exactly how, other factors must be taken into account. And above all, a department can be well established in the figures, but defended in the Assembly by a poorly informed urbanite, parachuted in for the logic of the apparatus.
Effects that are difficult to measure
Still, the question is far from trivial. “In fact, your vote on Sunday will not count exactly like that of your neighbor,” underlines Thomas Erhard, political scientist at Assas. He wrote a thesis on the subject, rewarded by the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. The specialist is surprised that we don’t talk more about electoral mechanics. “Absolutely no one has any idea of the effects of the electoral map! Yet it is the foundation of democracy, a crucial issue, which is all too rarely addressed in political debates,” he continues.
Another example: only candidates having obtained a number of votes equal to 12.5% of registered voters can advance to the second round of the legislative elections. This figure does not mean the same thing, depending on where you vote. To exceed this threshold, in the French constituency of North America, you must collect 29,000 votes. The candidate from Saint-Pierre and Miquelon only needs around 625, or 47 times less. This is the largest gap of its kind in the country, an atypical case. But he highlights how every local election is different. And remember that in legislative elections, not all votes have the same weight.
Many scientists have wondered whether these phenomena do not influence the score of certain parties, to the detriment of others. Could rural over-representation have been an asset for the Republicans, for example, in the lead in the villages, before being supplanted by the National Rally? Especially since each time the map was redrawn, it was under a right-wing government. Did he act self-serving? The world seemed to have been convinced of this in 2009: “The left will need more votes to have a majority,” wrote the French daily in an editorial published at the time of the last redistricting.
The big shake-up of cutting
The latest distribution of constituencies, the prerogative of the Ministry of the Interior, gave rise to numerous negotiations, documented in the scientific literature. A good number of local elected officials, from all sides, banged their fists so that the new design would not lower their chances of being in office again in the next election. But at the same time, those in charge of reform worked to smooth out the differences in votes necessary for a seat to change sides. Thus, if an election is lost, the constituency does not remain “locked” for too long by the opposing camp.
So in the end, the picture remained relatively balanced. No camp was clearly favored, according to studies published on the subject. “The only advantage that can be observed is in favor of the left, but it is very small. Whether in the first or second round, partisan biases are actually expressed very little in the final results,” concludes a research article published in 2016 in Electoral studies.
Which does not prevent specialists from wanting to modify the current system, for more equality. Reform yes, but how? Break the rule of one deputy per department? Difficult: “Imagine, you have no highways, no hospitals, and what’s more, they’re taking away a seat at the palace,” Thomas Erhard projects. Other divisions could improve the overall results, without even having to change the rules in force, for example. But even then, each modification has its share of side effects.
Review the map, an emergency
Diversity, for example. If the layouts mean that certain constituencies are only made up of fields, while others correspond, for example, only to peri-urban areas, the vote risks being “marked”, frozen. “This is also what we are currently seeing, the most homogeneous constituencies give a very strong advantage to certain parties depending on their characteristics,” supports Thomas Erhard. Conversely, a route that is too heterogeneous favors the center, usually the only one capable of attracting one side or the other.
No redistricting is perfect. But reformists agree on at least one thing: the map should be revised more often, to better reflect demographic movements. “In other democracies, we redistrict on average every ten years. In our country, it is irregular, and we sometimes have to wait forty years,” emphasizes Nicolas Sauger, professor at Sciences Po. If these delays are so long, it is because the issue is considered “explosive.” “From a distribution of votes, we can change the final political representation, whether it is voluntary or not,” insists the specialist.
He suggests taking inspiration from the United States and Canada. There, it is not the Ministry of the Interior that decides, but an external, independent body. This will help to depoliticize the issue, even if it is never trivial. “The redistricting should only be an electoral technical operation and aim for equality of representation in principle,” the specialist emphasizes. Researchers specializing in electoral statistics agree that there is an urgent need to start this project. But in the hubbub of the lightning campaign, not a word on this subject has managed to be raised.
.