The Constitutional Council rejected ten appeals against the decree organizing the legislative elections of 2024. There are still eight to analyze, but their chances of succeeding are extremely low.
The Constitutional Council has ruled: early legislative elections can be held on June 30 and July 7, 2024, without harming voters. The institution ensuring the conformity of laws and the regularity of elections therefore massively rejected a series of requests which contested a decree from Emmanuel Macron.
In this case, it is not the principle of the dissolution decided by the head of state on June 9 which was in question. It was the choice to organize a new election in barely twenty days that was challenged. The French Constitution allows the President of the Republic to choose the date of the election, between twenty and forty days after the dissolution.
Emmanuel Macron opted for the shortest deadline — twenty days. However, due to the dispersion of part of the electorate over various time zones (in certain nearby overseas constituencies or on the American continent, and in the Pacific Ocean), there was a risk that this delay falls to nineteen days in some territories.
Series of appeals against the decree
Numerous appeals have been launched against the president’s decree, taken on June 9 and published in the Official Journal on the 10th. The decision of the Constitutional Council has the effect of rejecting ten requests – there are still eight being investigated, according to the Council’s count (they were transmitted later, between June 18 and 20).
The most likely hypothesis is that these eight files still pending will follow the same fate as the ten filed between June 11 and 18. Previously, constitutional law specialists had estimated that these attempts would likely be futile.
In its argument, the Constitutional Council considers that the rules of the Constitution prevail over all other considerations. Therefore, the court ruled that the moment from which these twenty days are counted is the moment when the dissolution is pronounced (June 9) and not the moment when the decree is published in the Official Journal (June 10).
“ The President of the Republic pronounced the dissolution of the National Assembly by a decree of June 9, 2024 which took effect the same day », notes the Council in passing. In other words, the decree which enacted the dissolution was applied immediately, which solved the problem for the territories which risked having one day less.
Legislative provisions, notably those of the Electoral Code, take second place. It is the Constitution which prevails, the Council also recalls. Concerning French men and women living abroad, this problem does not arise, because they follow a different schedule (each round will take place a little earlier).
The Constitutional Council also provided a response to the other points of the decree leading to the convening of voters. Of the fifteen articles, eight were contested. They were all dismissed.
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