IFES Election Guide | Elections: France President 2022 (Second Round)

April 24, 2022 Held

French Republic

Election for President (French Presidency)

Results

Voter Participation

Voter
Turnout*

Cast Votes:35,096,391

Valid Votes:32,077,401

Invalid Votes:3,018,990

Registered Voters:48,752,500

Vote Share by Candidate:

Emmanuel MACRON18,779,641

58.54

Marine LE PEN13,297,760

41.46

Election Results Modified: Apr 26, 2022

General Information

At Stake in this Election:

The Office of the President of the French Republic

Government Structure:

Chief of State: President Emmanuel MACRON (since 14 May 2017)
Head of Government: Prime Minister Jean CASTEX (since 3 July 2020)
Assembly: The French Parliament (Parlement français) is a bicameral legislature consisting of an indirectly elected upper house, the Senate (Sénat), and a lower chamber, the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale).

Electoral System:

The President of the Republic is elected for a five-year term using a two-round system. If a candidate fails to receive a majority of the ballot during the first round of voting, a second round is held between the two candidates who received the most votes to determine the winner. [1]
The Prime Minister is appointed by the President of the Republic. [2]
The 348 seats in the Senate (Sénat) are determined through indirect election and serve for six years. Using a mixed system of voting, senators are elected through indirect universal suffrage by electoral colleges. A two-round, first-past-the-post method is applied to the 70 metropolitan and overseas departments that fill one-three senatorial seats. Proportional representation is applied to the remaining 39 metropolitan and overseas departments filling four or more senatorial seats. [3]
The National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) consists of 577 members: 556 for metropolitan France, 10 for overseas departments, and 11 for French citizens residing abroad. Members are directly elected using a single-member majoritarian system, which occurs in two rounds. A candidate may win their seat in the first round if they win an absolute majority, under the condition that this number is equal to or greater than a quarter of registered voters in their constituency. Candidates are eligible for a second round of voting should they have obtained a vote share equal to at least 12.5% of the total number of registered voters. If only one candidate meets this benchmark, then the candidate with the second highest vote share qualifies for the second round of voting. [4]

Last Election:

This election is a runoff between the two highest grossing candidates from the first round of voting, which occurred on 10 April 2022.
The previous round of presidential elections were held on 23 April 2017 and 7 May 2017.

Main Candidates in this Election: [5]

Candidate: Emmanuel MACRON
- Party: The Republic on the Move (LREM, LaREM, REM) / La République En Marche! (often shortened to En Marche!)
- First-Round Results: 9,783,058 votes / 27.85 percent of voters
Candidate: Marine LE PEN
- Party: National Rally (RN) / Rassemblement national
- First-Round Results: 8,133,828 votes / 23.15 percent of voters

Population and Registered Voters:

Population: 68,305,148 (2022 est.) [6]
Registered Voters: 48,803,175 (9 March 2022) [7]

Gender Data:

Female Population: 34,621,892 (2020 est.) [8]
Is France a signatory to CEDAW: Yes (signed 17 July 1980) [9]
Has France ratified CEDAW: Yes (ratified 14 December 1983) [10]
Gender Quota: For the directly elected National Assembly (Assemblée nationale), the difference between the number of candidates of each sex presented by a party within France’s 577 single-member constituencies cannot exceed two percent. [11]
Female candidates in this election: Four out of twelve [12]
Number of Female Legislators: 228 out of 577 (40 percent) in the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) [13]
Human Development Index (HDI) Position: Rank 26 at 0.901 (2020) [14]
Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Categorization: Very low [15]