The Constitutional Council has validated a new voting system for municipal elections in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, this Thursday, August 7. Therefore, the counselors of the central municipalities will now be chosen directly, in addition to representatives of districts and sectors.
The “wise men” pointed out that for these three municipalities, the most populated in France, the legislator was founded to want to “improve the representation of the various political sensibilities within (of their deliberative assemblies”, “in accordance with the objective of the constitutional value of the pluralism of the currents of thought and opinions.”
The reform, transported by the deputy of the Renaissance of Paris, Sylvain Maillard and supported by the Government, had been voted in early July by the Assembly despite the hostility of the Senate.
It must be applied from the municipal elections in March 2026, which leads to a double electoral system and, therefore, two Uns, one to choose the members of the Central City Council (Council of Paris, municipal advice of Lyon and Marseille), which then choose the mayor, the other to choose those of the district (in Paris) or the sector (in Lyon and Marsseille).
In Lyon, the reform leads to the organization of a triple vote, since the citizens of the municipalities of the Lyon metropolis already vote directly by their metropolitan representatives, at the same time as for their municipal councilors. In particular, seized at this point, the Constitutional Council considered that “the new established rules are not of particular complexity.”
Adopted in a context of decentralization in March 1982 by the initiative of the Minister of the Interior of the time, Gaston Deforere, the law had been requested for the first time in the municipal elections of 1983.
Source: BFM TV
