Presidential election in France

The French presidential election (élection présidentielle) provides for a term of five years ( " quinquennat the") French President . Before 2002, the term of office was seven years (" Septennat ").

The penultimate presidential election took place in 2012. The first round of the 2012 presidential election was on April 22nd. François Hollande won the runoff election on May 6 against Nicolas Sarkozy .

The most recent 2017 presidential election took place on April 23 (first ballot) and on May 7 (runoff). The winner of the runoff election was Emmanuel Macron , who prevailed against Marine Le Pen with around ⅔ of the votes .

Electoral process

Since a referendum in 1962, the president has been directly elected by the people. If none of the candidates receives an absolute majority of the votes in the first ballot , a run-off election will be held between the two candidates who received the most votes in the first round.

Up until now, every election had to be runoff. Charles de Gaulle received the highest percentage of votes in the first ballot in the 1965 presidential election with 44.6%.

The term of office of the presidents was reduced from seven to five years by referendum in 2000. Since 2002, the French have elected the head of state and the members of the National Assembly for a five-year term.

meeting

According to the constitution, the election must take place no later than twenty, but no earlier than 35 days before the end of the term of office of the incumbent president. The government traditionally sets a Sunday as the election date.

Voters

The President is elected by all persons who are eligible to vote at national level, that is, who are at least 18 years of age, who are French citizens and who are on the electoral roll.

Candidates

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To be able to stand for election, the candidate must be at least 18 years old and be able to vote. In addition, he must collect at least 500 signatures from supporters who hold political offices of their own choosing. A good 42,000 elected officials are eligible. These are primarily mayors, but also members of the National Assembly, senators or parliamentarians from regional authorities such as the regional and departmental councils. You must come from at least 30 different departments or French overseas territories, whereby no more than a tenth of the necessary signatures, i.e. 50, can be given for any department.

Previous direct elections

Since the introduction of direct elections in 1962, a total of ten elections for the French President have been scheduled:

year	Date of 1st ballot	Date of the 2nd ballot	Winner runoff election	Losing runoff
1965	December 5th	December 16	Charles de Gaulle	François Mitterrand
1969	June 1st	15th June	Georges Pompidou	Alain Poher
1974	5th of May	May 19th	Valery Giscard d'Estaing	François Mitterrand
1981	26th of April	10th of May	François Mitterrand	Valery Giscard d'Estaing
1988	April 24th	8th of May	François Mitterrand	Jacques Chirac
1995	April 23	10th of May	Jacques Chirac	Lionel Jospin
2002	April 21	5th of May	Jacques Chirac	Jean-Marie Le Pen
2007	April 22	May 6th	Nicolas Sarkozy	Ségolène Royal
2012	April 22	May 6th	François Hollande	Nicolas Sarkozy
2017	April 23	May 7th	Emmanuel Macron	Marine Le Pen

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Presidential election in France: how does it work? - Heinrich Boell Foundation France . In: Heinrich Boell Foundation France . April 14, 2017 ( wahlen-frankreich-2017.eu [accessed May 5, 2017]). Presidential election in France: how does it work? - Heinrich Boell Foundation France ( Memento des Originals of April 21, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Couve Philippe: 1965 - de Gaulle, le ballotage et la télévision . RFI . August 23, 2006. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
3. ↑ Elections and voting procedures . French embassy in Germany. Retrieved December 13, 2011.