the issues behind a divisive reform of municipal elections

2023-12-29 07:30:07
Posters for the municipal election, in Paris, June 29, 2020. RICCARDO MILANI / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP

It was promised for December, but its development was delayed. The bill aimed at reforming the famous “PLM law” (for Paris-Lyon-Marseille) should not be tabled on the desk of the National Assembly before “early next year”specifies David Amiel, Renaissance deputy of Paris and linchpin of the project.

The text is certainly drafted. But its promoters assure that “discussions are underway with local elected officials and parliamentarians from all sides” in order to ensure that the bill is voted on in 2024, as planned, with as much support as possible. The next municipal elections will be held in 2026. “Contrary to the texts presented on the same subject in the past, we do not want to brutally table ours and put other political forces up against the wall. We want to discuss in advance”explains Mr. Amiel.

The essential part of the Macronists’ project is, however, fixed in its principles. Adopted in 1982, the PLM law provides a special status for the country’s three main cities. In particular, it establishes a complex voting system. With a single ballot, voters designate those who sit on the council of their “sector” (the district, in Paris). And some of them are also members of the city’s municipal council. The system becomes more complicated by integrating local specificities linked to the existence of other communities in the same territory, notably the metropolis.

The diversity of oppositions better represented

The Renaissance deputies promise a “democratic progress”. In fact, the current system can lead to a candidate being elected in a minority in terms of number of votes. This has already happened, notably in Marseille, during the 1983 elections. Councilor of Paris and deputy secretary general of Horizons, the movement of former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, Pierre-Yves Bournazel recalls in a column at Monde the calculations of former MP Eric Diard. In 2020, he tabled a bill intended to revise the PLM law. He demonstrated that it was possible to become mayor of Paris by winning in only eight districts out of twenty, with 31% of the votes citywide.

This leads, they say, to “opportunistic territorial strategies”. Thus, underlines Sylvain Maillard, Renaissance deputy from Paris and president of the group in the National Assembly, the socialist Anne Hidalgo is according to him “mayor of eastern Paris, and the rest interests him little. It’s the same thing in Lyon and Marseille”. In short, summarize the promoters of the project, each voice must count in the same way.

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