French MPs have just approved a long-awaited reform: the municipal election system for France’s three largest cities, Paris, Lyon, and Marseille, which until now had enjoyed special status. The vote was held after heated debates and will leave some people unhappy: the reform should break down an unequal and cronyist system that is far from being a genuine exercise in democracy.
The system in place until now was established at the beginning of François Mitterrand’s socialist presidency in 1982. France’s three largest cities, Paris, Lyon, and Marseille (known as ‘PLM’), benefited from a special two-tier voting system, reminiscent of the system of electors used to elect the American president. Until now, the inhabitants of these three cities did not vote directly for their future mayor, but for councillors, some of whom sat on the city council with the task of choosing the mayor.
There has been widespread criticism of this system for a long time. After much procrastination, Macron’s MPs finally tackled the problem head-on and proposed a reform to address three major issues. The ‘PLM’ system can result in a mayor being elected despite receiving fewer votes than another candidate. This system discouraged candidates from campaigning since their election—or defeat—depended on the balance of power within the city council, over which they had no influence. Finally, its complexity fuelled citizens’ mistrust towards their city leaders.
The law should take effect immediately and will therefore apply to the next municipal elections, which are due to be held in 2026. Rather than a two-stage ballot, it introduces a double ballot. Residents will vote for their district councillors on the one hand, and for the councillors of the city’s central municipal council on the other, which will allow them to choose by name and on a single list the ‘grand electors’ who will elect the mayor, which was not the case under the previous system.
Without going into the complex details of the voting system, one essential piece of information should be noted: from now on, every voter will carry the same political weight, regardless of district. Until now, some districts acted as ‘strongholds,’ sending a given number of representatives to the central council regardless of the number of local vote totals for individual parties.
The repeated scandals that have hit mayors elected in 2020—from Anne Hidalgo’s disastrous management of Paris’ finances to Grégory Doucet’s failed environmental agenda in Lyon—have starkly highlighted citizens’ growing exasperation. In Paris, especially, people feel they have no say in the choices made by their leaders, who were elected without a clear majority and whose democratic legitimacy is increasingly questioned. In the midst of the COVID pandemic, low turnout amplified the effects of the two-tier voting system, and Anne Hidalgo was elected with support from less than 20% of Parisian voters.
The socialist and communist left fears the future effects of the reform and has therefore announced its intention to refer it to the Constitutional Council for censorship, attacking secondary aspects of the text, such as its cost and its compliance with European law.
Le Figaro has attempted to calculate who would have been elected in the previous elections if the new system had been applied in 2020. Based on these analyses, it is difficult to predict the outcome of the next election, and it is not certain that the Left will not come out on top after all. To win, the Right will have to demonstrate its ability to forge solid and efficient alliances.
