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The Struggle for Electoral Reform in France*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Robert G. Neumann
Robert G. Neumann
Affiliation:
University of California (Los Angeles)
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Extract

The French Constitution does not regulate the precise mode of election to its principal legislative chamber, the National Assembly, beyond stipulating (Art. 3) that it shall be elected on a territorial basis through direct and universal suffrage. This general provision was until recently implemented by a law which established a proportional list system based in general on the principal unit of French local government, the département.

The Assembly which enacted these electoral laws was completely dominated by the three big parties of the Left, the Communists, the Socialists, and the Popular Republican Movement (MRP). These groups favored proportional representation for a variety of reasons. First of all, devotion to proportionalism was part and parcel of left doctrine—an important point in a country in which political battles are carried out to a very large extent on the plane of ideas and doctrines. The Communists thought that PR would assure them a large representation in the dominant branch of goverment, i.e., the Assembly, while the MRP, an essentially new party without local organizations and experience with precinct work, considered it more favorable to its interests than a system in which its largely unknown candidates would have been hard-pressed in a struggle of personalities against older, and therefore better-known, men of such traditional parties as, for instance, the Radicals.

Type
The European Scene
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , September 1951 , pp. 741 - 755
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1951

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References

1 This law was passed on October 5, 1946; see Journal Officiel, Oct. 8, 1946.

2 Different systems prevailed in the overseas territories which send Deputies to the National Assembly. See Law No. 46–680 of April 13, 1946, Journal Officiel, April 14, 1946.

3 This domination could not be considered complete, by French standards, in view of the fact that a dividing line between Right and Left was traditionalljr drawn on the church question. The MRP, although “left” on social and economic issues, is actually a catholic party.

4 The MRP had its pre-war antecedents in two small groups, the Popular Democratic Party (Parti démocrate populaire) and the Young Republic (La jeune république).

5 This is of course an American term. In most French parties, with the exception of the Communists, the smallest organizational unit is based on the arrondissement.

6 A large number of contemporary French leaders emerged from the Resistance. Since the Resistance was, of course, a clandestine movement, most of its leaders were virtually unknown to the population at large in 1945 and 1946. This applied particularly to the MRP, which was largely a product of the Resistance.

7 During the resistance period and shortly thereafter, there was hope of a new political synthesis, free from the party system of the Third Republic. These ideas quickly evaporated in the light of post-liberation political realities.

8 The Communists have voted without exception against every measure proposed by the government. The RPF Deputies have nearly as negative a record, having supported the government only once and abstained twice up to date.

9 It is generally known that the “left” designation of the RGR is not to be taken too literally. Even outright conservative groups have called themselves “Left.” The RGR tends to go farther to the Right than the Radicals would like, causing much friction, but on the question of electoral reform there was unanimity.

10 The Republican Party of Liberty (Parti républicain de la liberé) actually is a bloc of right-wing Deputies and Senators.

11 But less bitterly so than in the past. The Socialists are now the standard bearers of the “lay state”—in which the school question is paramount.

12 Members of the Council of the Republic are now officially called “Senators.”

13 By contrast, not a single prefect and only a few sub-prefects are adherents of the MRP.

14 A resolution to this effect was adopted at the national Convention of Lille in 1950.

15 Georges Bidault, the principal leader of the MRP, was president of the clandestine National Council of Resistance, which embraced nearly all groups.

16 However, there is a fairly strong minority view among MRP Deputies of lower than top rank who want to retain PR.

17 The fact that the greatly increased post-war generation has now come of school age has sharpened the problem in that the public primary schools have proved incapable of accommodating this mass and the private schools have had to take the overflow. On the other hand, private teachers receive lower pay than public school instructors, causing inferior instruction at times in private schools.

18 Practising Catholics who follow the social teaching of the Church are here intended. Most Frenchmen are nominal Catholics for census purposes only.

19 The significance and influence of independent candidates should not be underestimated. Their influence is dominant in the recently elected National Assembly.

20 Despite strongly worded recommendations to the contrary by the communist leadership, there are now on record a number of cases where an appreciable number of communist voters have shifted to a left coalition in run-off elections for local councils. This constitutes some evidence to the generally-held belief that only a minority of the communist voters fully accept the discipline of the party.

21 Project Roques-Taillade.

22 For a good detailed report, see Le Monde, Dec. 22, 1950.

23 A majority of all members voting, but not of all members.

24 In the second vote in the National Assembly the project was adopted by a vote of 308 against 270. However, 311 votes were required to override the negative decision of the Council of the Republic.

25 President Herriot quoted three recent precedents to sustain his decision. For a verbatim report of the debate and of the president's decision, see Le Monde, April 29, 1951.

26 In the second vote on April 27, 14 Socialist.Deputies voted against their colleagues. They were reprimanded by the party's executive committee (comité directeur). Most Socialist Senators had also voted against the government's proposal.

27 By 332 against 248. Against the proposal voted: 167 Communists and 16 pro-communist leftist groups, 1 Socialist, 11 Radicals, 1 UDSR, 25 right-wing Deputies, 24 RPF and 3 pro-RPF. For the proposal voted: 96 Socialists and 8 associated Deputies, 31 Radicals, 138 MRP, 47 right-wing Deputies, 2 Independents. One Deputy abstained, 20 Deputies did not take part in the vote, and 13 were absent.

28 A June election is supposed to favor the government parties while an October or November date is supposed to favor the extremes, especially the Communists. In June, prices of food—an especially important issue in France—are relatively low and people are happy in the thought of the coming vacations. In October, prices are high, winter clothes must be bought, school books acquired, coal purchased, etc.

29 However, several départments form more than one constituency. They are Bouches-du-Rhône, Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Rhône, Seine (Paris), Seine-et-Oise, Seine-Inférieure, and the Gironde. Except for the Gironde, this same situation existed in 1946.

30 Apparentements must be listed at least three days before the official start of the electoral campaign, i.e., twenty-three days before the polls open.

31 The fact that a list has entered an apparentement is announced by the prefect and should also be stated on the respective ballots. However, it is significant that ballots which omit this mention remain valid nevertheless.

32 If there are not enough preferential ballots to affect the sequence of candidates, preferential ballots are counted as supporting the “official” list.

33 The law is poorly drafted. Art. 16 speaks of panachage and means preferential voting. However, true panachage means complete freedom for the voter to make up his own list, including substituting one name by another taken from a different list.

34 Let us assume that a certain list composed of five candidates has received 1,000 votes and that candidates A and B on that list have received 20 and 40 votes, respectively, by panachage on some other list. The votes are now counted together, namely 1,000 + 20 + 40 = 1,060. This total is divided by the number of candidates (5), giving each one an average of 212.

35 The method of the strongest average is applied by taking the number of votes cast for the strongest party as the basis for the apportionment of seats for the other parties. Larger parties are therefore favored. One seat is given outright to the party with the largest vote. Then the vote of that party is divided by two, and the resultant figure is compared with the total vote of the next largest party. If that party has more votes than half of the first party, it receives one seat. Then its votes are divided by two, and the resultant figure is applied to the next strongest party, and so on. When all parties qualified to take a seat are UBed up, the procedure begins again at the top, until all seats allotted to the electoral district have been distributed.

36 Under the method of the strongest remainder, the total vote of all parties combined is divided by the number of seats to be apportioned. The resulting figure is the electoral quotient. This quotient is now applied to the votes of each party to determine how many seats each is to receive. But a party whose vote is inferior to the quotient and superior to the remainder of votes of the strongest party after the first determination of seats, also receives a seat. Under the method of the strongest average, such a party would have received no seats and the stronger parties would have received more.

37 The above discussion concerns only elections in metropolitan France.

38 The energetic opposition of Edouard Herriot to electoral collaboration with the RPF prevented most Radicals from leaving the folds of the Third Force.

39 In Bordeaux (Gironde) a split occurred in the Radical ranks when the local leader of the party, Chaban-Delmas, broke with its leadership, especially M. Herriot, and ran on the RPF ticket while retaining his RGR (but not Radical) affiliation.

40 Corrèze has been notable for the fact that it has given the Communists 40.7 per cent (39.8 per cent in 1946) of its vote, although 75 per cent of its population are peasants. Queuille and his list polled slightly more than the Communists without obtaining a majority.

41 Under the decision of the electoral commission the Bas-Rhin déparlment has elected 5 MRP, 3 RPF, and 1 Communist. According to the other way of computing, 8 MRP and 1 Independent would have been declared elected.

42 Two additional seats are to be filled by Deputies from New Caledonia and Oceania, where elections take place at a later date.

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