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Elections in France

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Scene inside a polling station during the French presidential election of 2007: election officials and a standard transparent ballot box.
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France is a representative democracy. Public officials in the legislative and executive branches are either elected by the citizens (directly or indirectly) or appointed by elected officials. Referendums may also be called to consult the French citizenry directly on a particular question, especially one which concerns amendment to the Constitution.

France elects on its national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature

  • The president is elected for a five-year term (previously, seven years), directly by the citizens (see Election of the President of the French Republic).
  • The Parliament (Parlement) has two chambers.
    • The National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) has 577 members, elected for a five-year term in single seat-constituencies directly by the citizens.
    • The Senate (Sénat) has 348 members, 328 of which are elected for six-year terms by an electoral college consisting of elected representatives from each département, 8 of which are elected from other dependencies, and 12 of which are elected by the French Assembly of French Citizens Abroad (Assemblée des Français de l'étranger) which has replaced the High Council of French Citizens Abroad (Conseil Supérieur des Français de l'Étranger) a 155-member assembly elected by citizens living abroad.

See Government of France for more details about these political structures.

In addition, French citizens elect a variety of local governments. There also are public elections for some non-political positions, such as those for the judges of courts administering labor law (conseils de prud'hommes), elected by workers and employers, or those for judges administering cases of rural land leases.

France does not have a full-fledged two-party system; that is, a system where, though many political parties may exist, only two parties are relevant to the dynamics of power. However French politics displays some tendencies characterizing a two-party system in which power alternates between relatively stable coalitions, each being led by a major party: on the left, the Socialist Party, on the right, the UMP and its predecessors. See politics of France for more details.

Elections are conducted according to rules set in the Constitution of France, organisational laws (lois organiques), and the electoral code.

Elections are always held on Sundays in France.[1] The campaigns end at midnight the Friday before the election;[2] then, on election Sunday, by law, no polls can be published,[3] no electoral publication and broadcasts can be made.[4] The voting stations open at 8 am and close at 6 pm in small towns or at 8 pm in cities, depending on prefectoral decisions. By law, publication of results or estimates is prohibited prior to that time; such results are however often available from the media of e.g. Belgium and Switzerland, or from foreign Internet sites, prior to that time. The first estimate of the results are thus known at Sunday, 8pm, Paris time; one consequence is that voters in e.g. French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe knew the probable results of elections whereas they had not finished voting, which allegedly discouraged them from voting. For this reason, since the 2000s, elections in French possessions in the Americas, as well as embassies and consulates there, are held on Saturdays as a special exemption.

Voters

Standard transparent ballot box used in France. The voter puts the envelope containing the name or the list of people for whom he or she votes and then signs the electoral roll to avoid double votes.
Some French cities use voting machines.

With the exception of senatorial election, for which there is an electoral college, the voters are French citizens over the age of 18 registered on the electoral rolls. For municipal and European elections, citizens aged 18 or older of other European Union countries may decide to vote in France. Registration is not compulsory, but the absence of registration precludes the possibility of voting. Currently, all youths reaching the age of 18 are automatically registered.

Citizens may register either in their place of residence or in a place where they have been on the roll of taxpayers for local taxes for at least 5 years. A citizen may not be legally registered in more than one place. Citizens living abroad may register at the consulate responsible for the region in which they live.

Only citizens legally registered as voters can run for public office.[5]

There are exceptions to the above rules. Convicted criminals may be deprived of their civic rights, which include the right to vote, for a certain period of time depending on the crime. In particular, elected officials who have abused public funds may be deprived of the right to run for national public office for as long as 10 years. The application of such rules in the case of certain politicians has been controversial; see for instance the case of Alain Juppé.

Voting by proxy is possible when the citizen cannot easily come to vote (reasons include: health problems, the citizen does not live in the voting consistuency, he or she is away for work or vacations, he or she is jailed yet has not been sentenced and deprived of civic rights etc.). The citizen designates a proxy, who must be a voter from the same commune. The designation of the proxy must be made before a legally capable witness: a judge, a judicial clerk, or an officier of judicial police, or, outside of France, before an ambassador or consul. In the case of handicapped or severely ill people, an officer of judicial police or delegate thereof can be sent to the home of the citizen to witness the designation. The procedure is meant to avoid pressures on voters.

Electoral system

In all elections where there is a single official to be elected for a given area, including the two major national elections (the election of the President of the Republic and the election of the members of the National Assembly), two-round runoff voting is used.

For elections to the European Parliament and some local elections, proportional voting is used.

Voting procedures

Isolation booth

In general, voting is done using paper and manual counting. The voter gets pre-printed bulletins from a table at the entrance of the voting office (they are also provided through the mail), as well as an envelope. They enter the isoloir, or isolation booth, where they're hidden from sight, and insert the appropriate bulletin into the envelope. They walk to the ballot box and show their voter registration card (not compulsory) and are required to prove their identity[6] (in towns of more than 5000 inhabitants, an identification document must be shown[7]). After the officials have acknowledged their right to vote, the ballot box is opened and the voter inserts the envelope. One of the officials traditionally loudly says "a voté", which can be translated as "your ballot has been cast". It is purely ceremonial and has a double meaning: the voter's voice will be taken into account and they've accomplished their civic duty. They then sign the voters' list, and their registration card is stamped.

Procedures differ when electronic voting, not widespread in France, is used in some cities, despite some controversy about its safety and effectiveness.

Latest election

Presidential

Main article: French presidential election, 2012

Template:French presidential election, 2012

Legislative

Main article: French legislative election, 2012

Template:French legislative election, 2012

Past elections and referenda

Indirect presidential elections

Other elections

As well as Presidential and legislative elections, France also has municipal, cantonal, regional, European, and (indirect) Senatorial elections.

Regional

Regional elections have been held since 1986 to elect regional councillors and regional presidents: all elected to serve 6-year terms.

European Parliament

Elections for the French delegation to the European parliament are held every five years.

Senate

French senators are renewed by halves every six years through an indirect electoral college composed of elected officials and general, regional, and some local councillors.

Municipal

Municipal elections to elect city mayors and councillors are held every six years.

Cantonal


Referendums

The Constitution of France defines in Article 3 that "National sovereignty shall vest in the people, who shall exercise it through their representatives and by means of referendum."[8] The Constitution describes two ways for holding a referendum:

  • The President may, on the recommendation from the Government or the Parliament, submit to a referendum some government bills.
  • A referendum may be held upon the initiative of one fifth of the Members of Parliament, supported by one tenth of the registered voters.

The Constitution explicitly states that a referendum can be called only on a Government Bill "which deals with the organization of the public authorities, or with reforms relating to the economic or social policy of the Nation, and to the public services contributing thereto, or which provides for authorization to ratify a treaty which, although not contrary to the Constitution, would affect the functioning of the institutions" (Article 11 of the Constitution[8]).

The second procedure for holding a referendum has several limitations:

  • it cannot be used to repeal laws which are in effect for less than a year, and
  • if the proposal fails on a referendum, it cannot be re-submitted to a referendum for next two years.

The second procedure for holding a referendum was added to the Constitution in 2008, and it still has not come into effect (as of 2013). It will come into effect when appropriate legislation is implemented by the Parliament.

The Constitution of France can be amended in two ways:

  • on a referendum, or
  • by three fifths super-majority of both houses of the Parliament.

Most constitutional revisions went through the super-majority of the Parliament in Congress.

Ratification of treaties of accession of states to he EU must go through the same procedure as amendment of Constitution of France. All of ratifications went through the super-majority of the Parliament, except the first EU enlargement in 1973.

There were 9 referendums in the Fifth Republic:

See also

References

  1. ^ "Electoral code, article L55" (in French). Legifrance.gouv.fr. 27 October 1964. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  2. ^ "Electoral code, article R26" (in French). Legifrance.gouv.fr. 27 October 1964. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  3. ^ Law 77-808 of 19 July 1977 relative to publication and broadcasting of certain opinion polls, article 11
  4. ^ "Electoral code, article L49" (in French). Legifrance.gouv.fr. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
  5. ^ Electoral code, L44, LO127, L194
  6. ^ Electoral code, R58
  7. ^ Electoral code, R60
  8. ^ a b "Constitution". French National Assembly. Retrieved 2 November 2013.


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