The 2021 French regional elections: beyond second-order effects

ABSTRACT

Re-election of all incumbent Presidents, most of them from the Socialist Party (PS) or the Republicans (LR), was the main feature of the French regional elections of 20 and 27 June 2021. As a result, regional government remained controlled by the two parties that have dominated French politics since the early 1980s, even though both lost the 2017 presidential and legislative elections to newcomer Emmanuel Macron. The second-order elections model captures part of these dynamics, but the candidate-centered politics model provides a more appropriate framework to understand the general pattern of these regional elections. In a context of increasing split-ticket voting between regional and departmental elections, which were held at the same time, an era of divided government seems to have emerged since 2017.

KEYWORDS:

• Regional elections
• second-order elections
• candidate-centered politics
• divided government
• split-ticket voting

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Arjan Schakel and Valentyna Romanova for their sugges­tions on the first version of this text. They allowed me to clarify certain sections and to strengthen the theoretical argumentation. I am also grateful to Pierre Martin for providing valuable comments on this piece. All the errors remain mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In metropolitan France, the PS controlled 5 regions (Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Bretagne, Centre-Val de Loire, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Occitanie), the right-wing coalition 7 (4 LR in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Paca, Grand Est and Pays de la Loire; 2 ex-LR in Hauts-de-France and Île-de-France; 1 LC in Normandy), while Corsica was held by regionalists. The 4 overseas regions are disconnected from national politics and are not covered by this paper – they would need a separate analysis, considering the specificities of local politics.

2 Elections for departmental government used to be called cantonal elections before the 2015 reform.

3 Inhabitants of the Lyon Metropolis were only concerned by the regional elections. On its territory, the Lyon metropolis has exercised the competences of a department since the adoption of the Maptam law and the Lyon metropolitan elections were held simultaneously with the municipal elections in 2020. It has been the case in Paris since 1986.

4 To stand for election, candidates have to run in mixed pairs (binômes): each pair is made of a woman and a man. In the first round, a pair wins if it obtains more than 50% of the votes cast and at least 25% of the registered voters; if no pair satisfies these conditions, a second round is organized where a relative majority is enough. In case of a second round, the two pairs receiving the highest number of votes and all other pairs receiving more than 12.5% of the registered voters in the first round may stand for election.

5 Since 2015, departmental elections have concerned the whole of France whereas cantonal elections used to concern only half of the cantons, which were renewed separately every three years. The number of cantons has remained similar because the new electoral system introduced in 2015 (pair voting) led to their number being reduced by half. The slight variations between 1992 and 2011 were due to by-elections.

6 The full name of parties and party families listed in the table are as follows. EXG: Extreme left. FG-FI: Front de Gauche – France Insoumise. PCF: Parti Communiste Français. EELV: Europe Ecologie – Les Verts. PS: Parti Socialiste. DVG: Miscellaneous Left. LREM: La République en Marche. MoDem: Mouvement Démocrate. ­UMP-LR: Union pour un Mouvement Populaire – Les Républicains. DVD: Miscellaneaous Right. FN-RN: Front National – Rassemblement National. EXD : Extreme right.