Paris (AFP)
Can the government postpone the second round of municipal elections because of the coronavirus epidemic? Many political leaders demand it on the evening of the first election.
Difficult to dissociate the two rounds, say the constitutional experts, and what about those who were elected in the first round?
Question: Can we postpone the elections?
ANSWER: After the first round, a postponement is even more complex.
"The municipal election is inseparable, it forms a whole", poses for AFP the constitutionalist Didier Maus.
He believes that if there is talk of a postponement of the second round, the first must be canceled: "We redo all or nothing".
Jean-Philippe Derosier, constitutional lawyer and professor of law at the University of Lille reminded Sunday on BFM TV of the case of a legislative election in Reunion in 1973: "Due to a cyclone, we could not organize the second round and it was postponed, but only for a week. "
According to him, "one can imagine a certain tolerance and I think that the tolerance cannot go beyond a week".
Q: Can the results of the first round be invalidated?
A: No, for Jean-Philippe Derosier who stresses that "according to democratic principles, we cannot question an election that has taken place".
According to him, the high abstention, between 53.5 and 56% according to pollsters, does not change anything.
Marine Le Pen, president of the National Rally, asked Sunday to "take for granted" the elections of candidates elected in the first round and to "postpone" the other polls.
Keep the victories of the first round and postpone the other polls "would be a case that we have never known", according to political scientist Jean-Yves Camus.
Opinions differ on this point.
A postponement of the second round would result in the cancellation of the election of the candidates elected in the first round for Dominique Rousseau, professor of constitutional law at Paris-1, interviewed by AFP.
Conversely, the results have been acquired for Jean-Philippe Derosier, who says that a postponement of the second round "would only concern candidates who are currently on waivers".
In their municipality, a postponement of the second round would require extending the mandate of the current municipal councilors, which expires on March 31 - which a law to this effect, passed by parliament, could allow.
Q: How can the government do this?
A: Whether the state of emergency is declared or not, the postponement of elections would pass by law.
"If we declare a state of emergency, we can then issue a second decree saying that we postpone the municipal elections, a measure which will be justified by the state of emergency," explains constitutionalist Didier Maus.
He recalls that the parliament will have to be seized because the state of emergency will be declared in connection with the epidemic, that is to say without certainty on its time limit, or "to extend it beyond 12 days , you need a law. "
Didier Maus judges that the parliament could then also pass a law on the consequences of the postponement of the elections - extending the mandate of elected officials in particular.
Dominique Rousseau thinks that a bill could be put to the vote, even outside the framework of the state of emergency.
According to him, it should include two articles, one on the cancellation of the first round, the other on the postponement of municipal elections.
Article 34 of the Constitution provides that what concerns the free administration of local authorities must be the subject of a law, in matters of both election and jurisdiction.
Political scientist Frédéric Sawicki estimated on Twitter that "the only legal solution" to postpone the municipal elections lies in "the triggering of article 16" which confers special powers on the president.
Didier Maus judges for the moment that triggering this article "does not stand up because the regular functioning of the public authorities is not interrupted".
© 2020 AFP