European elections: What are the 'têtes de liste' in France?
Political news is set to fill a lot of the French news agenda over the coming weeks and you’ll hear a lot of talk about lists and 'têtes de liste' – but what do they mean, and what are the elections all about anyway?
European elections are coming up in the first week in June - and although under EU law all countries must use voting systems that ensure proportional representation, each individual country has its own rules for voting.
France operates a 'closed list' policy - which means that you vote for a party, rather than an individual candidate at these elections.
READ ALSO Can foreign residents in France vote in the European elections?
France used to divide its candidates into eight constituencies but these have now been abolished. Effectively, for the purposes of the European Parliamentary elections, France is a single constituency represented by 81 politicians – up from 79 at the last elections.
The number of MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) that each party gets is decided by the percentage of total votes that party receives. Parties must win at least 5 percent of the votes in order to send representatives to the Parliament.
Each party that plans to field candidates in the election supplies a list to France’s Interior Ministry. That full list was published in the Journal Officiel on Saturday, May 18th, and shows that 37 parties are fielding a total of 2,997 candidates to fill France’s allocation of seats.
In total, the post-election European Parliament will have 720 members, compared to 705 currently.
Tête de liste
The lists are defined by parties with their preferred candidates at the top – the first of these preferred candidates is the tête de liste (head of the list) and the de facto leader of the European election campaign.
For example, Valérie Hayer is the tête de liste of Emmanuel Macron's party group Renaissance while Jordan Bardella is tête de liste for the group representing Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National.
These politicians will be the first to be elected to the European parliament for their respective parties, based on vote share - and as both parties are predicted to get well over five percent, they're virtually guaranteed a place in the European Parliament.
The last name on RN’s list is party vice-president (and mayor of Perpignan) Louis Aliot - as he is 81st on the list, he would only become an MEP if RN got almost 100 percent of the votes in France.
But the nature of the party over personality vote has already led to an unusual dynamic. Intriguingly, it’s French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal – who is, unsurprisingly, not running for a seat at the European Parliament – who will debate Bardella live on France 2 on Thursday, May 23rd, rather than Hayer, the nominal top politician in the government-backed groups European election campaign.
READ ALSO OPINION: A European disaster for Macron could lead to messy autumn elections in France
Once elected, most MEPs decide to join a pan-European political group. Prior to this election, MEPs from French parties were aligned with six European political groups out of the seven that make up the Parliament.
What do the polls say?
According to an Ispos poll published on May 16th for Radio France and Le Parisien, 31 percent of those questioned said they were ready to vote for a list led by the far-right's Jordan Bardella.
Centrist Hayer's list ranks second, with around 16 percent of the intended votes, the centre-left Parti socialiste could collect 14.5 percent, followed by the far-left La France Insoumise at 8 percent, the right-wing Les Républicains at 7 percent while Les Ecologistes (green party) and the extreme-right Reconquête are projected to get 6.5 percent each.
Crucially, however, there’s not much French interest in the ballot, with only 45 percent of those questioned intending to vote, according to the Ipsos survey.
In 2019, voter turnout was 50.12 percent, up more than 7.5 percentage points on the previous ballot in 2014.
The lists in full
Below are the politicians chosen as 'head of the list' for their parties, listed in order of their current polling
Jordan Bardella - Rassemblement National
Valérie Hayer - Renaissance (the grouping of Macron's LREM party plus centrist Horizons and MoDem parties)
Raphaël Glucksmann - Parti Socialiste
Manon Aubry - La France Insoumise
François-Xavier Bellamy - Les Républicains
Marie Toussaint - Les Ecologistes
Marion Maréchal - Recônquete
The below parties are projected to get below the 5 percent threshold, although there is always the possibility for an election surprise
Léon Deffontaines - Parti Communiste français
Hélène Thouy - Parti Animaliste
Jean Lasselle - Alliance rurale
Jean-Marc Governatori - Ecologie au centre
Nathalie Arthaud - Lutte ouvrière
Pierre Larrouturou - Nouvelle Donne - Allons Enfants
Florian Philippot - Les Patriotes
Selma Labib - Nouveau parti anticapitaliste - Révolutionnaires
François Asselineau - Populaire républicaine
Nagib Azergui - Free Palestine
Guillaume Lacroix - Parti radical de gauche
Yann Wehrling - Ecologie Positive & Territoires
Caroline Zorn - Parti pirate
M. Fidèl (believed to be a pseudonym) - Pour une humanité souveraine
Philippe Ponge - Mouvement constituant populaire
Olivier Terrien - Parti révolutionnaire Communistes
Audric Alexandre - Parti des citoyens européens
Marine Cholley - Equinoxe
Michel Simonin - Paix et décroissance
Jean-Marc Fortané - Pour une autre Europe
Georges Kuzmanovic - Nous le peuple
Camille Adoue - Parti des travailleurs
Edouard Husson - Non ! Prenons-nous en mains
Pierre-Marie Bonneau - Les Nationalistes
Charles Hoareau - Association nationale des communistes
Francis Lalanne - de la Résistance
Lorys Elmayan - La ruche citoyenne
Gaël Coste-Meunier - Droits du parent et de l’Infant
Hadama Traoré - Démocratie représentative
Laure Patas d’Illiers - Europe Démocratie Espéranto
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European elections are coming up in the first week in June - and although under EU law all countries must use voting systems that ensure proportional representation, each individual country has its own rules for voting.
France operates a 'closed list' policy - which means that you vote for a party, rather than an individual candidate at these elections.
READ ALSO Can foreign residents in France vote in the European elections?
France used to divide its candidates into eight constituencies but these have now been abolished. Effectively, for the purposes of the European Parliamentary elections, France is a single constituency represented by 81 politicians – up from 79 at the last elections.
The number of MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) that each party gets is decided by the percentage of total votes that party receives. Parties must win at least 5 percent of the votes in order to send representatives to the Parliament.
Each party that plans to field candidates in the election supplies a list to France’s Interior Ministry. That full list was published in the Journal Officiel on Saturday, May 18th, and shows that 37 parties are fielding a total of 2,997 candidates to fill France’s allocation of seats.
In total, the post-election European Parliament will have 720 members, compared to 705 currently.
Tête de liste
The lists are defined by parties with their preferred candidates at the top – the first of these preferred candidates is the tête de liste (head of the list) and the de facto leader of the European election campaign.
For example, Valérie Hayer is the tête de liste of Emmanuel Macron's party group Renaissance while Jordan Bardella is tête de liste for the group representing Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National.
These politicians will be the first to be elected to the European parliament for their respective parties, based on vote share - and as both parties are predicted to get well over five percent, they're virtually guaranteed a place in the European Parliament.
The last name on RN’s list is party vice-president (and mayor of Perpignan) Louis Aliot - as he is 81st on the list, he would only become an MEP if RN got almost 100 percent of the votes in France.
But the nature of the party over personality vote has already led to an unusual dynamic. Intriguingly, it’s French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal – who is, unsurprisingly, not running for a seat at the European Parliament – who will debate Bardella live on France 2 on Thursday, May 23rd, rather than Hayer, the nominal top politician in the government-backed groups European election campaign.
READ ALSO OPINION: A European disaster for Macron could lead to messy autumn elections in France
Once elected, most MEPs decide to join a pan-European political group. Prior to this election, MEPs from French parties were aligned with six European political groups out of the seven that make up the Parliament.
What do the polls say?
According to an Ispos poll published on May 16th for Radio France and Le Parisien, 31 percent of those questioned said they were ready to vote for a list led by the far-right's Jordan Bardella.
Centrist Hayer's list ranks second, with around 16 percent of the intended votes, the centre-left Parti socialiste could collect 14.5 percent, followed by the far-left La France Insoumise at 8 percent, the right-wing Les Républicains at 7 percent while Les Ecologistes (green party) and the extreme-right Reconquête are projected to get 6.5 percent each.
Crucially, however, there’s not much French interest in the ballot, with only 45 percent of those questioned intending to vote, according to the Ipsos survey.
In 2019, voter turnout was 50.12 percent, up more than 7.5 percentage points on the previous ballot in 2014.
The lists in full
Below are the politicians chosen as 'head of the list' for their parties, listed in order of their current polling
Jordan Bardella - Rassemblement National
Valérie Hayer - Renaissance (the grouping of Macron's LREM party plus centrist Horizons and MoDem parties)
Raphaël Glucksmann - Parti Socialiste
Manon Aubry - La France Insoumise
François-Xavier Bellamy - Les Républicains
Marie Toussaint - Les Ecologistes
Marion Maréchal - Recônquete
The below parties are projected to get below the 5 percent threshold, although there is always the possibility for an election surprise
Léon Deffontaines - Parti Communiste français
Hélène Thouy - Parti Animaliste
Jean Lasselle - Alliance rurale
Jean-Marc Governatori - Ecologie au centre
Nathalie Arthaud - Lutte ouvrière
Pierre Larrouturou - Nouvelle Donne - Allons Enfants
Florian Philippot - Les Patriotes
Selma Labib - Nouveau parti anticapitaliste - Révolutionnaires
François Asselineau - Populaire républicaine
Nagib Azergui - Free Palestine
Guillaume Lacroix - Parti radical de gauche
Yann Wehrling - Ecologie Positive & Territoires
Caroline Zorn - Parti pirate
M. Fidèl (believed to be a pseudonym) - Pour une humanité souveraine
Philippe Ponge - Mouvement constituant populaire
Olivier Terrien - Parti révolutionnaire Communistes
Audric Alexandre - Parti des citoyens européens
Marine Cholley - Equinoxe
Michel Simonin - Paix et décroissance
Jean-Marc Fortané - Pour une autre Europe
Georges Kuzmanovic - Nous le peuple
Camille Adoue - Parti des travailleurs
Edouard Husson - Non ! Prenons-nous en mains
Pierre-Marie Bonneau - Les Nationalistes
Charles Hoareau - Association nationale des communistes
Francis Lalanne - de la Résistance
Lorys Elmayan - La ruche citoyenne
Gaël Coste-Meunier - Droits du parent et de l’Infant
Hadama Traoré - Démocratie représentative
Laure Patas d’Illiers - Europe Démocratie Espéranto
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