Will First Past The Post voting hand victory to the far right in France

If this week’s headlines are to be believed, the far right in France are heading for an election victory in the French General Election.

They’re doing this despite winning barely a third of the vote and because of the First Past The Post voting system, that could be enough to win them power.

One of the biggest problems with the First Past The Post voting system is that it can award huge majorities based on comparatively small shares of the vote. 

We saw that in the UK in 2001 and 2015, where Governments were elected winning healthy majorities on barely more than a third of the vote. We may see something similar again in the UK later this week! 

Like the UK, France also uses a First Past The Post voting system, but in France there are two rounds of voting. MPs are only elected in the first round if they win more than 50% of the vote. All other seats vote again in a second round, with any party that received less than 12.5% vote removed from the ballot paper. Parties can also withdraw candidates between the two rounds. 

In last Sunday’s first round of voting, the far right National Rally (the far right party) topped the poll in 297 of the 577 constituencies. They did this despite only winning 33.2% of the votes.

If France used the same single round First Past The Post voting system as the UK, and had people voted the same way on Sunday, the far right would have already won a majority!

All thanks to the First Past The Post voting system. 

2/3rds of France voted against National Rally - but that counts for little with a voting system that isn’t fit for purpose. 

But, because France has two rounds, voters now get a second chance. Only 72 seats have been decided (places where the winning candidate received more than 50% of the vote). 39 of those have gone to National Rally, 31 to the New Popular Front (leftist) and just 2 to President Macron’s Ensemble Alliance. 

Over 200 candidates have been withdrawn in a bid to stop the anti-far right vote being split. It is possible that this might lead to a more proportional outcome. We will watch with interest.

The whole experience highlights again the problems of the First Past The Post voting system and the risk that extreme parties can gain total power without having to win anything like a majority of the vote.

A few weeks ago, the French voted in the EU elections. National Rally won a very similar share of the vote, but because of the PR system in use, they only won just over a third of the seats. 

Now they could be the next Government of France - thanks to the First Past The Vote voting system.