2022 French legislatives

[Oryxslayer]

New Harris Legislative Poll. I feel much more confident about this one, and given that they polled pre-NUPES, we can compare the overall effects.



Firstly, we see that NUPES was not a perfect alliance, though it never could be. The last Harris poll had 35% for the NUPES parties individually, and 33% when united in a hypothetical tri-pronged system of alliances. 30.6% was the four parties combined round 1 results, so this is still a slight underperformance. The lost voters have mainly gone (back) to the presidential majority, something that might have been expected given the previous poll's measurement of the Macron -> LREM+ vote, but some also went to RN+, and some to whatever non-NUPES left option will appear on their ballot.



Onto the seat counts. The Presidential majority remains unfazed by NUPES, though their floor is now lower. Not surprising, since a good chunk of seats are pure REM+ versus NUPES runoffs, with little far right vote to speak of. The NUPES parties are up about 50 seats on the pre-NUPES poll, and the Far Right down a slight bit on pre-NUPES. The real victim here is LR+, who is down from a ceiling of 65 in the previous poll. There isn't that many seats LR could lose to NUPES, but rather this suggests a NUPES vs Macron discourse will lock them out of many runoffs, in a similar way to how LR+ benefited from the framing of the 2017 elective elections.



Also, bonus question on member party perceptions of NUPES.



Harris also polled the Occitanie region on it's own, similar to Provence last time. The First Round Here was 31.4% for the NUPES parties, 23.5% for Macron, 3.9% for Pecresse, and 24.6% for Le Pen.



Overall, it resembles the Round 1 vote very closely, similar to the Provence poll, albeit with Le Pen taking in some Zemmour voters. Therefore, a similar distribution can also be expected: Left in the cities and Pyrenees, Far Right along the Mediterranean coast, LREM+ in between. Overall, there are 49 seats in Occitanie, and the Presidential majority probably get's half if the round 1 results were to repeat themselves.

[DL]

If Reconquete ends up with 0 or 1 seat - does it fold and get swallowed up by RN? Seems to me that after Zemmour flopped in the presidential vote - there really is no raison d'etre for him to have his own party

[Antonio the Sixth]

So, France Inter put out some detailed and user-friendly maps of NUPES candidates by district and share of the votes received by the total NUPES candidates in the presidential elections. I used them (along with the map of 2017 results) to compile some data on the constituencies NUPES candidates are most likely to do well in and which party is likely to benefit.

NUPES candidates over 50%: 26 seats (21 in IdF)
of which 16 won by NUPES parties in 2017, 10 by other parties

• FI: 21 (10 FI, 2 PS, 6 LREM, 3 Right)
• PCF: 3 (all PCF)
• PS: 1 (PS)
• Gs: 1 (LREM)

NUPES candidates between 40% and 50%: 52 seats (23 in IdF)
of which 5 won by NUPES parties in 2017, 47 by other parties

• FI: 32 (2 FI, 1 Valls, 28 LREM, 1 Right)
• EELV: 12 (all LREM)
• PS: 4 (1 PS, 3 LREM)
• PCF: 2 (all PCF)
• Gs: 1 (Right)
• GE: 1 (LREM)

NUPES candidates between 35% and 40%: 37 seats (15 in IdF)
of which 4 won by NUPES parties in 2017, 33 by other parties

• FI: 18 (1 FI, 16 LREM, 1 DLF)
• EELV: 9 (1 PS, 8 LREM)
• PS: 7 (2 PS, 5 LREM)
• GE: 2 (all LREM)
• PCF: 1 (Right)

NUPES candidates between 30% and 35%: 109 seats (20 in IdF)
of which 7 won by NUPES parties in 2017, 102 by other parties

• FI: 68 (1 FI, 1 MDC, 56 LREM, 10 Right)
• EELV: 16 (1 PRG, 13 LREM, 2 Right)
• PS: 14 (4 PS, 10 LREM)
• PCF: 5 (2 PCF, 2 LREM, 1 Right)
• Gs: 5 (4 LREM, 1 Right)
• GE: 1 (LREM)

First, it's striking how little correlation there is between 2022 presidential vote and 2017 legislative vote. Of the 54 constituencies that elected NUPES candidates in 2017, only 25 where in constituencies where its candidates won over 35% of the presidential vote (less than a quarter of the 115 such constituencies), while a full 22 were in constituencies where these candidates couldn't break 30%. This implies both good and bad news for the alliance: it means it has a high ceiling as well as a low floor. It could gain over 90 seats if it brings out its own presidential voting base to vote and stops its opponents from consolidating in the runoff (of these 90 most likely pickups, 83 would come at LREM and its allies' expense, requiring them to make up a lot of ground elsewhere in order to keep their majority. On the other hand, if things go really badly, it could stand to lose over half of its incumbents. What this mostly shows, though, is that legislatives are idiosyncratic and that turnout, runoff dynamics, and local candidate strength can have a major impact on the outcome.

Also interesting is the breakdown of constituencies across the 4 major members of NUPES, all of which have supposedly been promised the ability to elect enough MPs to form a parliamentary group. For FI this obviously isn't in question, as it got the lion's share of winnable seats. 13 of its 16 incumbents are from constituencies NUPES presidential candidates won over 35% in. Even if it were to lose everywhere else, just picking up the constituencies where they won over 50% would guarantee them 21 seats. These grow to 53, 71 and finally 139 as you gradually lower the threshold, making up 68%, 62% and 62% of the total NUPES seats, respectively. So in general, the safer the constituency, the more likely FI kept it for itself - kind of a backward logic if Mélenchon wants to claim the role of the one expanding the coalition forward.

The other parties obviously don't fare nearly as well. The PS is starting with the most incumbents, of course, but defending many of them might be a challenge: only 11 of the 27 constituencies won by the PS in 2017 had NUPES break 30% of the vote. The other 16 might well find themselves in tough races, although ancestral left-wing strength and a strong personal profile could still carry them to victory. On the plus side, PS has 8 fairly plausible gains in places NUPES candidates won over 40% of the vote. PCF also has a solid 11 incumbents, 5 of which are pretty safe in constituencies where NUPES candidates got over 40% of the vote. Mostly those are all the really safe seats PCF is getting, though. Expanding a bit, in the 30-40% range, PCF is defending 2 more incumbents and potentially picking up 4 seats. Still, this only puts it back at 11, short of the 15 needed for a group. Finally, EELV has no incumbents at all, but got a relatively more favorable deal (probably a product of Jadot's somewhat more respectable presidential result). They potentially stand to win 21 constituencies where NUPES candidates got over 35%, enough to form a group, and even as many as 37 if you shift the threshold further down to 30%. That also doesn't include EELV's smaller allies, Gs and GE. The former of them got a remarkably sweet deal, with 7 candidacies in constituencies where NUPES was above 30%. The latter, meanwhile, is running in 4.

[parochial boy]

Thinking about it, one thing I'm not sure that has been mentioned is the potential role for triangulaires (or even quadrangulaires). In so far as, any candidate receiving over 12,5% of registered voters in a given constituency will qualify for the second round (iirc there are some technicalities but that is the broad jist of it). Leading to the potential, especially if turnout is reasonable, of second rounds opposing three or even more candidates in cases where they all acheive this threshold.

Or, in an election where the electorate seems to be splitting into three large and very antagonistic blocks, it is entirely possible that there are quite a large number of these. The antagonism between them therefore reducing the number of anti-RN désistements républicains (ie a non-RN candidate stepping down in the second round so as to concentrate the non-RN vote around one candidate).

In which respect, it's not always a simple question of where do RN/NUPES/LREM voters go in a second round they are absent; because all three are going to be present. And likewise, in terms of who wins where, that doesn't depend on the strength of one particular block, but in the degree of forces all have - as theoretically a fairly evenly split (lots of the South West, maybe) area would mean a much lower share of the vote being needed in order to win than in say the Paris region where there will be lots of simple left v centre-right duals; or in much of the rural North East where it will be centre-right vs far right with little left presence.

[jaichind]

Thinking about it, one thing I'm not sure that has been mentioned is the potential role for triangulaires (or even quadrangulaires). In so far as, any candidate receiving over 12,5% of registered voters in a given constituency will qualify for the second round (iirc there are some technicalities but that is the broad jist of it). Leading to the potential, especially if turnout is reasonable, of second rounds opposing three or even more candidates in cases where they all acheive this threshold.

Or, in an election where the electorate seems to be splitting into three large and very antagonistic blocks, it is entirely possible that there are quite a large number of these. The antagonism between them therefore reducing the number of anti-RN désistements républicains (ie a non-RN candidate stepping down in the second round so as to concentrate the non-RN vote around one candidate).

In which respect, it's not always a simple question of where do RN/NUPES/LREM voters go in a second round they are absent; because all three are going to be present. And likewise, in terms of who wins where, that doesn't depend on the strength of one particular block, but in the degree of forces all have - as theoretically a fairly evenly split (lots of the South West, maybe) area would mean a much lower share of the vote being needed in order to win than in say the Paris region where there will be lots of simple left v centre-right duals; or in much of the rural North East where it will be centre-right vs far right with little left presence.

Good point.  And with the NUPES alliance would not turnout increase acrosss all voting blocs on the premise that the election might not be a preordained blowout?

[Oryxslayer]

Thinking about it, one thing I'm not sure that has been mentioned is the potential role for triangulaires (or even quadrangulaires). In so far as, any candidate receiving over 12,5% of registered voters in a given constituency will qualify for the second round (iirc there are some technicalities but that is the broad jist of it). Leading to the potential, especially if turnout is reasonable, of second rounds opposing three or even more candidates in cases where they all acheive this threshold.

Or, in an election where the electorate seems to be splitting into three large and very antagonistic blocks, it is entirely possible that there are quite a large number of these. The antagonism between them therefore reducing the number of anti-RN désistements républicains (ie a non-RN candidate stepping down in the second round so as to concentrate the non-RN vote around one candidate).

In which respect, it's not always a simple question of where do RN/NUPES/LREM voters go in a second round they are absent; because all three are going to be present. And likewise, in terms of who wins where, that doesn't depend on the strength of one particular block, but in the degree of forces all have - as theoretically a fairly evenly split (lots of the South West, maybe) area would mean a much lower share of the vote being needed in order to win than in say the Paris region where there will be lots of simple left v centre-right duals; or in much of the rural North East where it will be centre-right vs far right with little left presence.

That is one of the big questions. Turnout is these days around 50% in these elections, probably a bit lower given the direction of voter apathy after the presidential contest. This makes anticipating triangulaires hard, because while it is simplistic to view the election as dividing into three poles, it certainly has not. Macron's allies have not allied with LR+, nor have Zemmour and Le Pen made peace. The recent polls show that non-NUPES left candidates will also get non-insignificant percentages as a reaction to NUPES. This all means that the bar is still difficult to reach - there was only one triangulaire in 2017 (with a 25-25-25 vote split) and similarly small number in 2012. Even though they certainly will increase, we are not talking about half the map, barring something extraordinary.

The main issue preventing excessive triangulaires is the inverse vote concentration between the NUPES parties and the Far Right. Then there is the case of turnout probably favoring LREM+, just based on past precedent, and of the limited tactical voting that occurs when one party invests heavily or runs a quality candidate in a seat - or the reverse when they abandon a area as unwinnable. All this is to say that the already limited number of areas suggested by round 1 results that could foster triangulaires are likely to be more limited, since this is not the presidential contest. So we don't know, and only time will tell.

[DL]

When it comes to these "triangulaires" etc... I suppose I can see the logic that if you have three candidates with between 25 and 30% of the vote - none of them are likely to stand down in round 2. But if you have a scenario where (for example) in round 1 the LREM candidate has 35%, the NUPES candidate has 30% and the RN candidate has - say - 19%. How many RN voters will trudge out to the polls again for the second round to vote for a third place candidate with no path to victory?

Has there ever been talk of making legislative elections be like the presidential election and only allow the top 2 candidates on the second round ballot?

[Oryxslayer]

In other news, Zemmour announced he is standing in a Var constituency.

[DL]

In other news, Zemmour announced he is standing in a Var constituency.

Isn't Var a big RN stronghold? Would RN stand aside for him or would he have to compete with them?

[Tintrlvr]

In other news, Zemmour announced he is standing in a Var constituency.

Isn't Var a big RN stronghold? Would RN stand aside for him or would he have to compete with them?

They will certainly not stand down; RN has been steadily freezing out anyone who sided with Zemmour in the Presidential race and clearly wants to strangle his party to avoid competition on the far-right. But Var is very much a Zemmour-friendly sort of place: It's quite high-income and full of pied-noirs and retirees. Very different from the far-right areas in the NE of France that are low-income and full of manual laborers where Zemmour's orthodox right-wing economics paired with upper-class racism and borderline monarchism has no appeal. That doesn't guarantee Zemmour will be elected (indeed, depending on the seat, he could just hand the seat to LREM if he ends up in a three-way runoff with LREM and RN), but it does mean he has a shot even with RN in the race.

[Hash]

More precisely, he's standing in Var's 4th constituency, which covers Saint-Tropez, Cogolin, Cavalaire-sur-Mer, Bormes-les-Mimosa and Grimaud along the coast and Vidauban, Le Luc and Lorgues inland. It was Zemmour's best constituency in the Var (and seventh best overall), with 14.65%, but also Panzergirl's second-best in the department with over 32%. Of course, Zemmour won 22.4% in Saint-Tropez (and 21% in Grimaud), basically one of his best result in a commune with over 1,000 voters. Cogolin, a commune that's mostly located inland but with an opening on the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, has a far-right (ex-FN) mayor since 2014 who supported Zemmour (he won 16% there).

Panzergirl's strength, on the other hand, is more concentrated in the arrière-pays (Plaine des Maures and Argens valley) with 41% in Vidauban, 38.6% in Le Luc (which elected a FN mayor in 2014, but they lost the town in 2020 after a tumultuous term) and 38% in Gonfaron - basically the far less glamourous and poorer parts of the Var - although, even with Zemmour, she won strong results in the geriatric coastal towns (31% in Bormes-les-Mimosa, 30% in Le Lavandou).

In 2017, LREM won the seat by about 3,600 votes in a runoff with the FN (54.7%-45.3%); in the first round, LREM won 32.3% against 24.8% for the RN and 17.9% for LR. As in 2017, the RN candidate is Philippe Lottiaux, a parachuté from Avignon who doesn't have particularly strong local roots. RN is very much in a 'Zemmour needs to pay for what he did' mood and definitely won't kindly step aside in his favour, particularly in a strong seat for them too. There is a tiny risk that Lottiaux and Zemmour cancel each other out and deprive the far-right of a spot in the runoff, but the left and LR are probably far too weak to leapfrog either Zemmour or the RN. I think there is a narrow path to a Zemmour victory but it's probably not the likeliest outcome right now.

[brucejoel99]

Possibly stupid question but are triangulaires, quadrangulaires, & etc. FPTP?

[Hash]

Possibly stupid question but are triangulaires, quadrangulaires, & etc. FPTP?

Yeah, whoever wins the most votes wins. Quadrangulaires are basically impossible under current rules and turnout levels: the last one was in 1973, the last election before the qualification threshold was raised from 10% to 12.5% of registered voters.

In 1958, when you only needed 5% of registered voters to qualify and turnout was extremely high, there were 97 quadrangulaires, 9 quinquangulaires and 1 sexangulaire!

[Oryxslayer]

When it comes to these "triangulaires" etc... I suppose I can see the logic that if you have three candidates with between 25 and 30% of the vote - none of them are likely to stand down in round 2. But if you have a scenario where (for example) in round 1 the LREM candidate has 35%, the NUPES candidate has 30% and the RN candidate has - say - 19%. How many RN voters will trudge out to the polls again for the second round to vote for a third place candidate with no path to victory?

Has there ever been talk of making legislative elections be like the presidential election and only allow the top 2 candidates on the second round ballot?

Something to note about this is that unless turnout surges (unlikely) there cannot be a triangulaire on 35-30-19. Turnout is expected a bit below 50% based on precedent, so on average one will need a bit above 25% of the voters who turned out to meet the threshold. This is why there was only 1 triangulaire in 2017: the vote had to split near perfectly 25-25-25. Now this time the expected vote in the average district for the non-'major' parties is lower, say around 12-15%, so there is a larger pie available to divide up and facilitate three-ways. But given all the factors I have stated above, their number still should be limited despite the growth, though how many and where they occur remains an open and unanswerable question.

[Oryxslayer]

In other news, NUPES has allies on Reunion:



And we got a new Cluster17 poll, which points to similar trends as Harris (NUPES didn't hold all their expected voters, some flowed back to LREM+, others to minor leftists):

[Oryxslayer]

Macron announces Elizabeth Borne as leader of the Majority Alliance for now and the upcoming election.

[MRCVzla]

Some controversy has brought about the final grid of "nuances" or labels that the French Interior Ministry classifies the parties and various factions of the political spectrum (aka the ones that will appear in the official results), as the label of the coalition of the presidential majority "Ensemble !" is included (at first there were only the "nuances" of LREM, Modem and the other allies were mixed in the "divers center"), but not that of the left-wing coalition NUPES, possibly because it was not submitted to the Ministry in time.

This would be a problem when reading the overall results of the coalition, as it is divided between the "nuances" of the LFI, PCF, PS, a large part of the ecologists (EELV, GE, LND...) and also in several "divers gauche" (along with the dissidents and other left-wing independents), the regionalist allies in the DTOM or also in the "divers" of far-left (POI), while the entire Macronist presidential majority will be classified under a single label.

Members of the NUPES coalition have already expressed complaints and it is rumored that they would denounce to the Council of State the exclusion of the unitary label (which probably will not go very far)

https://twitter.com/2022Elections/status/1526501006871351296

The candidates of the New Popular Union (#NUPES) denounce the absence of their label on the grid of nuances of the Ministry of the Interior, a choice which could minimize the score of the alliance.

That of “Together! » is there she is present.

[Oryxslayer]

Weekly Harris Poll. Basically no overall change in either the Percentage topline and the seat counts. The most interesting thing to note is that Zemmour's decline benefits LR+ not RN, though we knew this from the data.





This week the region polled by Harris individually is Hautes-de-France. The Round 1 was: Le Pen 33.4%, 26.6% Combined NUPES candidates, and Macron 25.4%. Unlike in previous regions, the Presidential Majority is down comparatively. This is to the benefit of LR+, who do have a good number of incumbents in H-d-F, as well as NUPES who is in turn losing some votes to the minor leftists.



Overall there are 51 seats in this region, and unless they win a disproportionate number of runoffs vs the Far Right, it will probably be one of the weakest regions for LREM+. Macron only won 14 of the constituencies in round 2 versus Le Pen. In 2017, the Far Right vote was divided so that their LR+ and LREM+ opponents won a disproportionate number of runoffs. This time, the circumstances are such that things are likely to be reversed.

[Oryxslayer]

New (first I think?) Elabe Poll of the legislatives.

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1526945738348974086?s=20&t=MkmCA0XYz...

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1526947293844365312?s=20&t=MkmCA0XYz...

[DL]

If these polls and projections are correct Macron may only have a narrow majority and by far the largest opposition to him will be from NUPES. Does it actual matter for French politics over the next few years if the left (NUPES) is the main opposition in the NA and the LR and RN are way behind...or does anyone care?

[Oryxslayer]

If these polls and projections are correct Macron may only have a narrow majority and by far the largest opposition to him will be from NUPES. Does it actual matter for French politics over the next few years if the left (NUPES) is the main opposition in the NA and the LR and RN are way behind...or does anyone care?

I mean everyone expects NUPES to fall apart post-election, unless they win of course. Therefore, opposing Macron would be a fragmented front, with nobody like LR/UDI from last time who could command a large share of the chamber against him. This is part of the reason why Harris still splits the NUPES parties projected seats in their model I suspect.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If these polls and projections are correct Macron may only have a narrow majority and by far the largest opposition to him will be from NUPES. Does it actual matter for French politics over the next few years if the left (NUPES) is the main opposition in the NA and the LR and RN are way behind...or does anyone care?

I mean everyone expects NUPES to fall apart post-election, unless they win of course. Therefore, opposing Macron would be a fragmented front, with nobody like LR/UDI from last time who could command a large share of the chamber against him. This is part of the reason why Harris still splits the NUPES parties projected seats in their model I suspect.

Staying united in opposition is actually a lot easier than staying united in governing. All of these parties are overwhelmingly likely to oppose Macron's agenda, at least on economic matters (there's definitely a lot of potential overlap on foreign policy and on some - but far from all - social issues, but despite whatever you'll hear, economic issues are still the most important in structuring French political alignments), so I could see some relatively smooth sailing for NUPES in the coming legislature. Of course, that doesn't guarantee that they'll run together come 2027.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Macron will probably not even win first round, but still have an absolute majority in the second round.

Could as well cancel democracy entirely. What a joke. There is nothing democratic about this system. It's like miles worse than the electoral college, maybe similar to the US senate giving more weight to smaller rural states.

It's even worse with Le Pen. They have as much as Macron in the first round and might not even get like 20 seats lol, but systems like this will more rapidly erode democratic foundations and trust in democracy for sure.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

It looks like Macron's party will get another majority - but does it matter who comes in second? is there such a thing as an "official opposition" in the National Assembly? In other words if NUPES is the clear second largest block with well over 100 seats and the RN and the remains of LR are way back - does that affect the tenor of French politics for the rest of Macron's tenure or does it not really matter?

I think you need a certain amount of seats to have an official fraction (20 or 30 something like that).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm not a particular fan of the two-round system (and certainly not of the very peculiar way it is handled for French legislative elections), but there is a democratic justification for it: that it is undemocratic for highly polarising candidates to be elected on narrow pluralities. As always, much depends on how we define 'democracy' and 'democratic'.

But I will add that, as a general rule, if a candidate or party is very polarising and the election is high-profile enough for ordinary people to care about the outcome, then straight-FPTP will often mimic the effects of a runoff system, to an extent, anyway. People will decide to vote for candidate X even though they support party Y because it is Important that party Z is beaten.