One constituency, one local campaign
In France, except for the election of the president, all two-round elections take place over a week. This was the case for the 2021 departmental and regional elections (June 20 and 27) and this was to be the case for the 2020 municipal elections (March 15 and 22) until the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the second round further. three months (June 28). As for the Europeans, which take place proportionally at the same time throughout the EU, they are in a single round, on May 26, 2019 for the last ones.
How to explain this difference between the elections? For the presidential election, “it is a national campaign, not a local campaign. Given the importance of the French territory, including mainland France and overseas, fifteen days seemed a minimum period to allow the two finalists to cover it. The constituencies for local elections are necessarily smaller,” explained constitutionalist Pascal Jan, who became prefect of Yonne, to TV5 Monde at the beginning of the year.
The exception of French people living abroad
The size of the constituencies does indeed make the difference. As proof: the exception of French people living abroad, who vote over 15 days in the legislative elections. In these 11 constituencies created in 2010, French people living outside France voted more than a week ago for the first round, marked by the elimination of Manuel Valls, and will vote again next weekend for the second round.
“The French community residing abroad votes a week in advance for the 1st round in order to facilitate the delivery of electoral material to voters for the second round, and so that the candidates elected and the candidates elected for the second round have a period of two weeks to be able to campaign”, justifies the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It must be said that the constituencies sometimes cover several continents, like the 11th, which includes forty-nine countries divided between Eastern Europe (7 countries), Asia (28) and Oceania (14). ..
Same case in French Polynesia, which voted on June 4 and will vote in the second round on June 18.