A plethora of French by-elections

The second round of six French constituency (or circonscription) by-elections concluded yesterday, and they resulted in a sharp rebuke for President Emmanuel Macron. These were all caused by the elevation of their incumbent MP to a mayoralty in the French local elections in June.

Even though his party, LREM (Les Republic-En Marche!) were defending two of the seats, they failed to make the second round in any of the six by-elections. Although President Macron has handled the coronavirus pandemic better than Boris Johnson has in the United Kingdom, the effects of his reforms are still fresh in voter memories at present. The main opposition, Les Republicans (LR), France's main conservative party, did not perform as well as expected but nevertheless came out strongest. In the 3rd constituency of Maine-et-Loire, the LR candidate only prevailed in the second round due to transfers from France Arise (DLF, Debout La France), which is France's closest answer to UKIP and the Brexit Party. LR mainly picked up votes from lapsed LREM voters. The Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party, in reality France's equivalent of Labour) made a reasonable recovery despite their former Presidential candidate, Benoit Hamon, having formed his own party and teaming up with the French Greens (EELV, or Europe Ecologie Les Verts), for three of the by-elections. They had no trouble holding the seats they were defending but could not make any headway in the other by-elections.

Although the need to tackle the climate emergency has received greater attention during the coronavirus crisis, especially since the substantial drop in pollution was there for all to see during the initial lockdown, EELV could not win any of the six by-elections despite progressing to the second round in four of them. This can be attributed to in particular former LREM voters being unwilling to vote for EELV because the economic reforms of President Macron run counter to green values and the green recovery that is needed in a post-coronavirus world. EELV still has no seats in the National Assembly of France (the only Ecologist candidate elected at the last National Assembly election, Eric Alazuet, is now a member of LREM) and these results are a considerable disappointment for them given their excellent performance in June. As for other parties, France Arise significantly hampered LR in two of the by-elections but could not proceed to the second round in either; of interest is the strong performance of an independent conservative (divergent droit) candidate, Audrey Fontaine, in the by-election for La Reunion's second circonscription, although there the PS candidate (backed by the French Communist Party and Unsubmissive France) nevertheless won in the first round.

With the combined factors of the coronavirus pandemic and general disinterest in constituency by-elections in France, turnout across the six circonscriptions was universally abysmal, with only the by-election in Haut-Rhin recording a turnout above 20%.

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