French voters will go to the polls to elect a new president – or re-elect incumbent centrist Emmanuel Macron – in two Sunday rounds on April 10 and 24. How does the two-round system work, how are campaigns financed and what restrictions are placed on media coverage? FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at the nuts and bolts of France’s presidential election.
Who votes – and how?
All eligible French adults born on or before April 9, 2004 – who will be at least 18 years of age on the eve of the first round – and who are registered to vote can do so. Most voters can register until the sixth Friday (March 4 this year) before the first round on April 10. A few exceptions get a grace period, until 10 days before first vote: those naturalised as French, celebrating an 18th birthday or moving house in the home stretch of the campaign, for example. A French national can be deprived of voting rights by court decision. Citizens serving prison terms aren’t automatically ineligible, although incarcerated individuals must use a special procedure to register. Unlike in municipal and European Parliament elections, other European Union nationals who live in France do not have a say in who holds France’s highest office.
Voting in France is a paper-based process: Each registered voter receives an envelope in the mail containing every official candidate’s platform and as many ballots – small pieces of paper inscribed with a candidate’s name – as there are candidates. From 8am on Election Day, registered voters head to their assigned polling places – often a local school – to cast one of the ballots received by mail (or an identical one available at the polling place).
After a voter’s identity and assigned polling place has been verified, he or she is given an official envelope and heads into a booth, pulling closed the curtain. The voter places one name in the envelope and then brings it to a transparent ballot box where the polling chief confirms the voter’s identity, opens the slot and checks that only one envelope is deposited. The polling official then calls out, “A voté!” (“Voted!”) and the voter signs a list next to his or her name to complete the process. The voter’s Electoral Card – which looks similar to a coffeeshop fidelity card with enough boxes to mark in several elections – is stamped with the day’s date. Polls close at 6 or 7pm, except in large cities where they close at 8pm.
How does the two-round system work?
French voters go to the polls on two Sundays, two weeks apart. The two-round system that decides the president in France has no equal in North America and is a rarity in Western Europe, with the notable exception of Portugal. But it is a popular way to pick a leader in central and eastern Europe as well as Central Asia, South America and widely across Africa.
Technically, a French president could win office in a single round of voting by scoring more than 50 percent of the vote on that first Sunday – but no contender for France’s top job has ever managed that feat. In practice, the run-off vote decides the winner between two finalists who won the most votes in the first round.
Why two rounds?
General Charles de Gaulle – a founding father of France’s Fifth Republic and its 1958 constitution, as well as the first president of France’s political modern era – was famously suspicious of political parties. He sought to curb their influence with a voting system he helped devise for choosing France’s leader by direct universal suffrage (starting with himself, as it happens, in 1965). As early as the 1940s, the World War II Resistance hero had advocated for a vote that would ultimately unite, not divide, the French public.
Indeed, as long as presidential hopefuls meet certain conditions (see below), they need not enjoy the backing of a long-established political party. Emmanuel Macron managed this exploit when he won office in 2017, having never been elected at any level and with a fledgling party, La République en Marche (Republic on the Move or LREM), that he had founded himself.
One effect of the system is that, potentially, representatives of every hue on the political spectrum can find themselves on the first-round ballot with little need to compromise on a unifying political line – not unlike aspiring nominees in US party primaries.
A common refrain is that the first round is for voting with one’s heart while the second is for voting with one’s head. Voters are free to choose their (more or less) ideal candidate at the ballot box on that first Sunday, but then must select from the two candidates left standing for the second – a run-off sometimes cynically described as choosing between “the lesser of two evils”.
Why does France vote for president in April?
Blame it on Georges Pompidou. The second president of France’s political modern era, the Fifth Republic, died in office on April 2, 1974. The French Constitution requires that the vote to select a deceased leader’s successor be held between 20 and 35 days later. The Fifth Republic’s first presidential election by universal suffrage took place in December 1965 with the run-off held on the Sunday before Christmas.
Since 2002, French presidential elections have been held five years apart, down from the previous seven. But there is some wiggle room from election to election, which explains the exceptionally early April 10 and 24 votes in 2022. The constitution requires that a presidential election be held between 20 and 35 days before an incumbent’s term ends, which in Macron’s case is May 13. But problematically in 2022, the other option that rule left open was for votes to be held on April 17 and May 1: the first round would have fallen on Easter Sunday, the second on the May Day holiday. Every other run-off vote since 1981 has elected the president in early May.
Why so many candidates?
France’s two-round system has a significant side-effect: a bounty of sundry candidates. And that carries inconveniences: A come-one-come-most first round lowers the threshold for making the run-off and can split the vote so finely that a favourite gets squeezed out before the final.
In 2002, a record 16 candidates competed in the first round, including eight on the political left. As a result, the Socialist Party candidate, popular sitting prime minister Lionel Jospin, was unexpectedly eliminated that first Sunday. Even more shocking at the time, far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen won a place in the final – with less than 17 percent of the vote. Incumbent conservative Jacques Chirac would see Le Pen off handily in an 82 percent landslide, after every voter other than extreme right supporters turned out to defeat Le Pen – but the fiasco left a bitter taste in the mouths of French leftists.
For 2022, more than 40 contenders have thrown their hats in the ring, but that crowded field is likely to thin considerably by March 11, when the official roster of candidates in announced.
Who can run for president?
French nationals aged 18 and older can run under certain conditions – much younger than the US minimum age of 35, although France has yet to install a teenager in the Elysée Palace.
The conditions include being registered to vote, having not been deprived of the right to stand for office in a court of law (a common penalty in corruption convictions, for example), not being under guardianship and having duly carried out any national service obligations (France had mandatory military service until 1997). Outgoing incumbents are allowed to stand for re-election only once for a second five-year term. Officially, presidential candidates are also supposed to demonstrate “moral dignity”; but somehow that concept has never been precisely defined.
Another requirement meant to weed out the riffraff – or at least the most marginal or obviously unfit to stand – is a system known as the parrainages, literally “Godfatherings” (or sponsorships). To make the ballot as an official presidential candidate, would-be contenders must earn the signatures of 500 elected officials spread across at least 30 French departments or overseas territories certifying their support for an individual’s right to run in the election.
Hopefuls must present the 500 signatures when they apply to France’s Constitutional Council to join the official presidential election ballot. They also must also provide statements detailing their financial status and business interests, which are made public in the name of transparency. The 2022 deadline for applying is March 4; the Constitutional Council will publish the official list of candidates on March 11.
How much do campaigns spend?
French campaign financing is regulated under a strict ceiling: For 2022, a first-round candidate can spend no more than €16,851,000 on the effort. A candidate who garners enough votes to earn a place in the second round sees the total allowed spending rise to €22,509,000.
The price tag on a presidential bid in France is a drop in the bucket compared with the United States. Ahead of the 2020 US presidential election, Republican incumbent Donald Trump and Democratic nominee hopeful Michael Bloomberg reportedly each spent $10 million (€8.8 million) on just two 30-second campaign ads during the 2020 Super Bowl.
And France’s spending cap is no joke. Last September, former president Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted and handed a one-year jail sentence over illegally surpassing the financing cap during his unsuccessful bid for re-election in 2012 (a decision he is appealing).
Campaigns must be privately financed, namely by political parties or by individual donors. Companies are not allowed to make donations and individuals cannot donate more than €4,600 per year.
Loans are subject to restrictions, too; only political parties or banks headquartered within the European Economic Area can lend to a French campaign. For the 2022 election, political parties and candidates are no longer allowed to accept loans from foreign states or from non-European banks to prevent foreign interference in French elections.
Candidates are required to file their campaign spending ledgers with the National Commission for Campaign Funds and Political Financing within two months after the election.
For candidates who score at least 5 percent of the vote, the French state reimburses campaign spending equivalent to 47.5 percent of the ceiling. Those who score less than 5 percent are only entitled to 4.75 percent of that same ceiling.
Airtime and ‘electoral silence’
Media in France are subject to strict constraints on how much airtime they devote to presidential candidates, and those rules evolve as the election nears. Once the Constitutional Council publishes the official list of candidates, expected by March 11 this year, radio and TV networks must provide “equitable” airtime – known as temps de parole or “speaking time” – to each of the candidates. What constitutes equity for each candidate during the period is regulated by France’s Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communications (Arcom) based on how representative a candidate is deemed to be from poll numbers and his or her results in previous elections.
The regulator also takes into account when a candidate receives airtime; networks can’t cut corners by featuring one candidate during primetime and relegating a rival to the middle of the night.
Once the official campaign begins, on March 28 this year, the rule changes. From then on, every candidate must be allotted the exact same airtime on every network – a contrivance to put the household names and the longest of long shots on an equal footing.
Right up until midnight on the Friday before the first round April 10, each first round candidate gets equal airtime from one network to another. From then until the polls close on first-round voting on Sunday at 8pm, French media must observe “la silence électorale” – when they are required to avoid quoting candidates or citing opinion polls for fear of unduly influencing voters.
From the day after the first round, the cycle repeats: Equal speaking time for each finalist until midnight on the Friday before the April 24 run-off and then “electoral silence” before polls close at 8pm on the big day.