France: regional elections, instructions for use

The organization of regional and departmental elections was complicated by health instructions.

REUTERS / Gonzalo Fuentes

Text by: Aurélien Devernoix

6 mins

This is the last major electoral event before the 2022 presidential election. Rejected twice, the French regional and departmental elections will take place on June 20 and 27.

What are the French regions and their competences?

How will these elections unfold?

RFI offers you the instructions for use of these communities and the ballots that will appoint their leaders.

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Since January 1, 2016, the number of French regions has increased from 27 to 18, in a desire to offer them more political and financial resources and to strengthen decentralization. The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, second in terms of population after Île-de-France, has nearly 7.8 million inhabitants for an operating budget approaching 4 billion euros.

Their skills have been strengthened over the years, notably with the

establishment of metropolises

, a sort of regional “capital”, with very significant economic and political weight. The regions thus play a key role in the fight for the climate by being responsible for the management of transport, land use planning and environmental protection. They also manage high schools and vocational training, while sharing cultural and tourism development missions with the departments.

Metropolitan France has 12 regions as well as Corsica, a community with a special status, endowed with greater autonomy.

The Overseas Territories have 5 departments and regions which will also renew their executives on June 20 and 27: Guadeloupe, Reunion, Guyana, Martinique and Mayotte.

The last three cited have the status of a single local authority, like Corsica, and therefore only have a single assembly bringing together the skills of the department and the region.

Departments, electoral adjustment variable

Created in 1789 following the Revolution, the departments have been the subject of multiple criticisms in recent years, their usefulness in the French administrative mille-feuille having been called into question.

Their removal has even been considered.

Numbering 101, they are represented by departmental councilors whose particularity is to be elected since 2015 in a male-female pair, in order to achieve the objectives of political parity, which these local assemblies had previously struggled to achieve. .

These advisers are, like their regional counterparts, elected for 6 years.

But since the 1980s, their mandates have been extended several times to 7 years, due to reforms of the statutes of the departments or an overload of electoral meetings.

The departmental elections of 2014 were thus postponed for a year because of their concomitance with the municipal, European and senatorial elections that year and in order to make them coincide with the regional elections.

Note that the departmental and regional councilors who will be elected in June will have a longer term than the 6 years provided for by the Constitution.

To avoid a new congestion in the polls in spring 2027, during which the presidential and legislative elections will take place, the next departmental and regional elections will be held in December of the same year.

A double ballot, a logistical challenge in times of pandemic

These 2021 departmental and regional elections are coupled, which does not go without raising some fears in terms of organization.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Home Office is demanding that

voters cannot vote for both ballots

at the same polling station.

It is therefore a logistical challenge for the mayors who are responsible for the organization.

In total, nearly 600,000 citizens should be mobilized to run the polling stations and monitor electoral operations.

These assessors and tellers will however have priority in the vaccination campaign against the coronavirus currently underway.

An electoral campaign complicated by health instructions

The organization of regional and departmental elections was the subject of a lively political debate: the oppositions were firmly attached to their maintenance in June, while within the majority, some pleaded for a further postponement to the fall, or even after the presidential and legislative elections of 2022. One of the arguments put forward by supporters of the postponement was the difficulty of carrying out an electoral campaign in suitable conditions in the face of the strong epidemic pressure that the country is experiencing.

The government has decided to put in place specific measures: electoral meetings and public meetings "face to face" are prohibited except in health conditions permitting.

The digitization of the official campaign, which will run from May 31 to June 19, is therefore strongly encouraged, with in particular the publication on a website of the candidates' professions of faith and the organization of debates on local public radio and television.

► 

To listen: Regional: "We are witnessing an operation to destabilize the right orchestrated by E. Macron"

A stake for the presidential

A total of 1,758 regional councilors and 4,058 departmental councilors will be elected at the end of this double ballot. In addition to the local political issue, these elections will also have a national impact within a year of the presidential election. It should also be noted that, like deputies and senators or mayors, departmental and regional advisers can grant their sponsorship to people wishing to stand for the presidential election.

500 signatures are needed to be able to run for the post of Head of State and this threshold has, in the past, blocked certain ambitions or created difficulties for prominent personalities.

In 2012, Marine Le Pen (RN) had thus managed to gather the sufficient number of sponsorships only three days before the deadline for submitting applications.

A few weeks later, she obtained more than 6 million votes in the first round of the presidential election.

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To read also: Regional in France: Éric Dupond-Moretti rings the charge against Marine Le Pen

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