DECRYPTION
We do not vote in Paris, Lyon and Marseille as in the rest of the country. Since 1982, these three cities have had a specific voting system. Like the American presidential elections - where the Americans elect a college of big voters -, the Parisians do not vote directly for a candidate but for councilors of district. Except in the districts where they were candidates, nobody voted directly for Anne Hidalgo, winner of the second round of the municipal elections on Sunday, Rachida Dati or Agnès Buzyn. Explanations.
20 districts, 503 elected officials, 163 Paris councilors
Paris is divided into twenty arrondissements. The novelty of this 2020 edition is that during the vote, they become 17 electoral sectors, the first four arrondissements being grouped together to form the "Paris Center" sector. During the campaign, candidates carry a list in each sector. Thus, the inhabitants of each arrondissement vote to elect their advisers to sit on the Paris Council. The number of councilors per borough varies with each election, depending on its population.
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In total, Paris has 503 elected representatives: 163 Paris councilors and 340 district councilors. They are elected for six years. Each arrondissement sends 3 to 18 elected members to the Paris Council, relating to its number of inhabitants. The first elected members of each list sit on the Paris Council. It is the 15th arrondissement - the most populous - which has the most elected: 54, including 18 at the Council of Paris. Conversely, the 6th district, the least populated in the capital, has only 13 elected officials, including 3 councilors from Paris.
The mayor of Paris elected before the district mayors
At sector level, a list with an absolute majority wins from the first round. In the event that a second round should take place, any list that has exceeded 10% may participate. The woman who leads at the end of the second round automatically obtains half of the seats of borough councilors. The remaining seats are allocated to proportional representation.
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As soon as the final results, place the election of the mayor of Paris, which is held in the week following the second round. The 163 new councilors from Paris meet at the Town Hall for the election. It is an absolute majority vote, which means that you need the support of at least 82 councilors. Without an absolute majority at the end of the first two rounds, a third round is organized by relative majority. Next comes the election of borough mayors, elected eight days after the election of the mayor of Paris.
A contested ballot
This voting method has been disputed since its establishment in 1982. Indeed, the fact that half of the seats are automatically allocated to the winning list within a district could have given rise to real electoral paradoxes: in 2014, Anne Hidalgo was thus elected mayor of Paris while her rival Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet had collected more direct votes. Others regret to see the election refocusing on ultra-local issues at the expense of a broader vision for the city.
In 2001, Bertrand Delanoë had collected 49.60% of the vote, but 92 advisers. The right, torn between Philippe Séguin and Jean Tibéri, had gathered 50.4% of the vote, but only 71 advisers supported it.