The French electoral system, with a two-round majority, is a wall that Marine Le Pen’s far-right party always collides with in legislative elections. This time will not be an exception. The projections of results in the first round give the National Regrouping (RN, formerly the National Front) slightly more than 19% of the vote, but only between 10 and 25 deputies at the end of the second round, next Sunday.
The objective of those who drew up the 1958 Constitution, in the times of General Charles de Gaulle, was to put an end to the chronic instability of the governments of the Fourth Republic (1946-1958). During that period, in which a highly proportional system governed, more than twenty governments succeeded each other. Many lasted a few months, some even days. The crises were constant due to the change of alliances between the parties.
The price that has been paid during the Fifth Republic for seeking stability at all costs has been a very presidential regime and an exaggerated overrepresentation in the National Assembly of the first party, which is usually the one that supports the president. On the contrary, the rest of the political forces obtain a number of deputies that is sometimes much lower than the popular support obtained. This above all affects the National Regrouping, which, due to its far-right affiliation, faces the “sanitary cordon” laid by the other parties in the second round. In the last legislative, it only had eight deputies, an insufficient number to form a parliamentary group.
Under the current system, one deputy is elected to the National Assembly for each of the 577 constituencies into which France is divided. So far it works like in the UK. The difference is that the British celebrate only one lap. The seat in the House of Commons is won by the candidate with the most votes, even if the difference is only one vote with respect to the second. In France there are two rounds, unless a candidate obtains more than 50% of the vote and those votes represent at least 25% of the voters registered in the census. In other words, if abstention is greater than 50%, a second round must also be held.
The most common is that none reaches half plus one of the votes and goes to a second round. In this, the first two classified and a third or fourth in the case -very infrequent- participate in the event that they have obtained the vote of at least 12.5% ??of the electoral roll.
Le Pen’s party has had the added difficulty this time of the candidacy of Éric Zemmour’s ultra-Reconquest party, which has stolen votes from the far-right public.
Marine Le Pen herself, who obtained 55.4% of the vote in her constituency of Pas de Calais, will have to contest the second round due to the high abstention rate. Her support is less than the 25% of the census required by law. Regardless, her choice then seems warranted.
