Legislative. Why there is only one week between the two rounds of elections

The first round of early legislative elections caused by the dissolution of the National Assembly by Emmanuel Macron took place on Sunday… and the second will take place a week later, on July 7. The electoral code is clear: “The vote lasts only one day. […] It takes place on a Sunday. […] In the event of a second round of voting, it will take place on the Sunday following the first round,” indicate articles L54 to L56. That is, one week between the two rounds, compared to two weeks between the two rounds of a presidential election.

The presidential election is the exception

But in reality, it is the presidential election which is an exception: all the other two-round elections only provide for a one-week gap between the two deadlines. Thus, there was only one week between the two rounds of the legislative elections of 2022 (June 12 and 19), the regional and departmental elections of 2021 (June 20 and 27). And municipal elections – even if in 2020 the health crisis delayed the second round by more than three months (March 15 and June 28).

How can we explain this difference with the presidential election? For the latter, “it is a national campaign, not a local campaign. Given the importance of the French territory, including mainland France and overseas, 15 days seemed a minimum period to allow the two finalists to travel across it,” explains constitutionalist Pascal Jan to TV5 Monde.

577 constituencies of different sizes

However, if the legislative elections are indeed national elections (which aim to elect the deputies of the National Assembly), the 577 constituencies are local. And of reduced dimensions most of the time: even the largest ones in metropolitan France (the 1^D from Lozère or the 4^e from Côte-d’Or, for example) are easily covered in a week.

This is not the case, however, for the constituencies of French people living abroad or French Polynesia, which are particularly large. The smallest – Switzerland, 6^e constituency – is still more than 40,000 km², or four times the department of Gironde. Others, like 11^e, span several continents and dozens of countries. Traditionally, French people living abroad and French Polynesia vote over two weeks in the legislative elections. As in 2022, when the first round took place on June 5 and the second on the 19th (June 12 and 19 in mainland France).

2024: no exception for large constituencies

“The French community living abroad votes one week in advance for the first round in order to facilitate the delivery of electoral materials to voters for the second round, and so that the candidates elected for the second round have a period of two weeks to be able to campaign,” explains the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

But not this time: these anticipated legislative elections are convened within the very specific framework of Article 12 of the Constitution, after the dissolution of the National Assembly. Result: only one week between the two rounds for all constituencies, including overseas and French people living abroad. This has given rise to several appeals to the Constitutional Council, often due to these very tight deadlines…