Voter Participation Up In French Local Elections

Voter participation in France's local elections was at almost 43 percent at 5pm, a sharp rise on the 36 percent who voted in the 2011 poll at the same time.

Polls opened across France Sunday morning in the first round of local elections amid mounting national concerns over economic stagnation, increasing unemployment and immigration rates. Sunday’s vote is being held under a new voting system designed to adjust to changing population data.

French council elections are in two rounds if candidates get less than 50 percent of the vote. The second round will take place on March 29.

The abstention rate for the Sunday's elections was estimated at between 48.5 percent and 49.5 percent, according to the IPSOS and CSA polling agencies.

Voting districts redrawn and reduced

Departmental councils are voted on based upon their geographic region, or ‘cantons’. The upcoming two-round elections, which will take place on March 22 and 29, are for councillors in 2,054 cantons. The cantons were recently re-drawn in accordance with population data released by INSEE (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) in December 2013. They were also dramatically reduced in number -- from 4,035 to 2,054. So now, each French department has about 20 cantons. The original cantons were drawn up in 1790, one year after the French revolution. Several large cities are not involved in these local elections, including Paris, which is considered both a municipality and a department.

Push for more gender equality

Along with a name change -- they are now called “departmental” and not “cantonal” -- the upcoming elections are giving the French a new way to vote. The ballot will be ‘binôme’ – with tandems consisting of two names. Each tandem will have a male and female candidate. This new rule to elect both a man and a woman is a push for greater gender equality in the departments. In 2011, less than a quarter of first round candidates were women.

More power for regional governments?

So far, councillors have been in charge of social programmes (child welfare, support for the disabled and elderly), management of county roads and transport, management of schools and school transport, and culture and tourism. But a new bill recently introduced into the lower-house National Assembly proposes to take some of the power from the regional council seats and give it to the regional governments. Debate over the proposed changes is expected to last until after March 22, so the public won’t know the exact role of the councillors until after the elections.

Out of 101 departments, or the larger governmental bodies that encompass the cantons, between 30 and 40 seem likely to switch to the right. The left, which holds 61 departments, is unlikely to gain any of these."