Abandonment of proportional representation for legislative elections: is the five-year term over?

It is now a certainty, the voting method for the next legislative elections will not be changed.

Yet it was a campaign promise from Emmanuel Macron.

He had undertaken to make three institutional reforms: to limit to three in time the accumulation of mandate;

reduce the number of parliamentarians by a third, and introduce proportional representation for the election of deputies.

With this last renunciation, that makes three promises and three falls.

Why ?

Problem of time and problem of expediency too.

First, time is running out.

To switch to proportionality, it would be necessary to vote a law after examination of the project by a Commission of control of the electoral division, and all this before the spring since it is forbidden to touch an electoral method less than a year before the deadline .

This technically means that there are only ten days left, at most.

But nothing is ready.

And then, as Jean Castex confides in a small committee, if the government were to release this project now, it would be accused of "non-solism", in other words of delay.

It is not opportune, therefore.

Is this a problem for Emmanuel Macron?

It is always a problem not to keep his electoral promises, even if he can rightly accuse the Covid of having shattered its reform schedule.

But it is on the political level that the Head of State can have regrets.

This proportional, it was the hobby of François Bayrou and the Modem, who will be disappointed.

It was also a form of insurance for the fading future.

Proportionality is a fairly safe way to set up parliamentary coalitions.

And for a President who, if re-elected, has little chance of regaining an overwhelming parliamentary majority, the coalition was a playing card.

And then, it's like a black sign that strikes once again any attempt to transform democracy.

In a France which too often feels badly represented, badly defended, proportionality was the assurance of greater diversity.

The Great Debate did not produce much;

the Citizen's Convention has gone into a spin on a doctrinaire vision of the climate;

a Theodule committee without any legitimacy or power was tasked with monitoring the vaccination.

Definitely, engaging in direct dialogue with the people or with their real representatives is complicated.