Voting method in the Assembly: will the next legislative elections have a dose of proportional representation?

What if the legislative elections of 2027 took place with a dose of proportional representation? The question, which has tormented the political class since the abandonment of this voting method – tested in 1986 and which led to the first cohabitation – has returned in recent weeks. A true sea serpent of French political life, proportional representation, which is common among our neighbors, has often been invoked without ever coming to fruition. This time, however, the idea seems to be coming to fruition with a determined lawyer: the President of the National Assembly.

Mixed proportional

Yaël Braun-Pivet wishes, in fact, to present a bill before the summer to the Council of State, for a vote hoped for just before or after Christmas. The elected representative of Renaissance des Yvelines is multiplying consultations to find “a way of passage”, encouraged by Emmanuel Macron who had included proportional representation in his campaign promises in 2017 before the reform of the institutions which supported it collapsed on the affair Benalla in 2018. The legislative elections of 2022, which caused the President to lose his absolute majority in the Assembly, seemed to have buried the idea, until now.

In an interview published in Le Figaro on March 22, Yaël Braun-Pivet explained that “with proportional representation, the Assembly would be more like the French”. “If the Assembly does not resemble the French, how can they trust it? Proportionality in the legislative elections was a promise from 2017. It is time to honor this commitment,” she said.

However, there is no question of imagining returning to the full proportional system which was in force in 1986. Ms. Braun-Pivet is proposing a mixed system, like that in force for the election of senators. “I am putting a proposal for debate. It is feasible, because it does not require electoral redistribution. As in the Senate, parliamentarians would be elected on proportional lists, in the most populous departments – those where 11 deputies or more (i.e. 11 departments, editor's note). Elsewhere, the majority vote would be maintained. In total, 152 deputies out of 577 would be designated proportionally, or 26% of them”, explains Yaël Braun-Pivet, assuring that he is not proposing “. an integral proportional approach, which could be destabilizing.

The fact remains that a change in the voting method is always politically perilous and the person who proposes it is often accused of wanting to engage in manipulation to weaken their adversaries – we see this with the project to reform the voting method for municipal elections in Paris , Lyon and Marseille.

Each party takes out its calculator

In fact, each party took out its calculator to see how many deputies it would have had in the 2022 legislative elections if a dose of proportionalism as proposed by Yaël Braun-Pivet had been in force. The presidential majority (Renaissance, Horizons, Modem) would have 18 fewer deputies at 227, the Nupes alliance (LFI, PCF, PS, EELV) six more (140), the LR nine more (70) and the RN five moreover (95). And there would be two Reconquest deputies. No wonder then that tensions have appeared in the majority which is divided on the subject. The president of the Renaissance group in the Assembly, Sylvain Maillard, is fiercely hostile to it.

But Yaël Braun-Pivet received the support of François Bayrou. The president of MoDem, always a supporter of full proportional representation, announced during his party's congress on March 24 that “if those responsible ever had difficulty being convinced, there is a very simple way to convince them: give speak to the French people”, that is to say, organize a referendum on proportional representation.

The shadow of dissolution

Yaël Braun-Pivet will in any case continue his all-out consultations. On April 30, she will meet LR President of the Senate Gérard Larcher, very reluctant on proportional representation, then Edouard Philippe, president of Horizons, and Boris Vallaud, leader of the PS deputies. Without waiting to be consulted, the rebels want full proportional representation as in 1986. “We do not want a dose of proportionalism. We want the entire National Assembly proportional,” said the deputy on April 11. LFI Bastien Lachaud, who announced that he was submitting a bill to this effect.

At a time when abstention is breaking records, proportional is in any case debated for 2027… or before if Emmanuel Macron decided to dissolve the Assembly for example after a motion of censure and the reform had been voted on at the beginning of 2025…

In December, a confidential poll commissioned by LR showed that in the event of dissolution and therefore with a majority vote, the RN could obtain a majority in the National Assembly, the left and the Macronist camp collapsing, and the LR falling between 44 and 60 elected. With a proportional election, the RN wave would a priori be less strong…