French legislative election, 2002
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| French legislative election, 2002 All 577 seats to the French National Assembly |
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| June 9 and June 16, 2002 | ||||
| Majority Party | Minority Party | Third Party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Leader | Jacques Barrot | François Hollande | François Bayrou | |
| Party | UMP | PS | Union for French Democracy | |
| Leader's seat | Haute-Loire-1st | Corrèze-1st | Pyrénées-Atlantiques-2nd | |
| Last election | - | 255 seats | 112 seats | |
| Seats won | 399 | 140 | 29 | |
| Seat change | - | -115 | -83 | |
| Popular vote | 8,408,023 (1st round) 10,026,669 (2nd round) |
6,086,599 (1st round) 7,482,169 (2nd round) |
1,226,462 (1st round) 832,785 (2nd round) |
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| Percentage | 33.30% (1st round) 47.26% (2nd round) |
24.11% (1st round) 35.26% (2nd round) |
4.86% (1st round) 3.92% (2nd round) |
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| France |
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The French legislative elections took place on June 9 and June 16, 2002 to elect the 12th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic, in a context of political crisis.
The Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced his political retirement after his elimination at the first round of the 2002 French presidential election. President Jacques Chirac was easily reelected, all the Republican parties having called to block far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Chirac's conservative supporters created the Union for the Presidential Majority (Union pour la majorité présidentielle or UMP) to prepare for the legislative elections.
The first round of the presidential election was a shock for the two main coalitions. The candidates of the parliamentary right obtained 32% of votes, and the candidates of the "Plural Left" only 27%. In the first polls, for the legislative elections, they were equal.
The UMP campaigned against "cohabitation", which is blamed for causing confusion profitable to the far-right and far-left. Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a relatively low-profile politician who said he would listen to "France at the bottom", was chosen as the party's candidate for Prime Minister.
Without a real leader, and staggered by surprising April 21's results, the left was in difficulty. The Socialist chairman François Hollande tried to revive the "Plural Left" under the name of "United Left"; but the effort was undermined by the fact that it didn't have a real programme. Furthemore, the left-wing parties could not motivate their voters against an unrecognized and apparently uncontroversial politician like Jean-Pierre Raffarin. In addition part of the left-wing electorate did not want a new "cohabitation". Finally, the polls indicated a growing advantage for the Presidential Majority.
The right won the elections and the UMP obtained a large parliamentary majority of 394 seats. For the third time under the Fifth Republic, a party acquired an absolute majority (the "blue surge"). Five months later, it became the Union for a Popular Movement.
On the left, the Socialist Party achieved a better result than at the winning 1997 elections, but its allies were crushed. The far-left returned towards its usual level. In far-right, the National Front lost the half of its May 5 voters.
[edit] Results
| Parties and coalitions | 1st round | 2nd round | Total seats | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Seats | Votes | % | ||||
| Union for a Popular Movement (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) | UMP | 8,408,023 | 33.30 | 48 | 10,026,669 | 47.26 | 357 | |
| Union for French Democracy (Union pour la démocratie française) | UDF | 1,226,462 | 4.86 | 6 | 832,785 | 3.92 | 29 | |
| Miscellaneous Right-wing | DVD | 921,973 | 3.65 | 3 | 274,374 | 1.29 | 8 | |
| Movement for France (Mouvement pour la France) | MPF | 202,831 | 0.80 | 1 | - | - | 1 | |
| Liberal Democracy (Démocratie libérale) | DL | 104,767 | 0.41 | 1 | - | - | 2 | |
| Rally for France (Rassemblement pour la France) | RPF | 94,222 | 0.37 | 0 | 61,605 | 0.29 | 2 | |
| Total "Presidential Majority" (Right) | 10,958,278 | 43.39 | 59 | 11,195,433 | 52.76 | 399 | ||
| Socialist Party (Parti socialiste) | PS | 6,086,599 | 24.11 | 1 | 7,482,169 | 35.26 | 140 | |
| French Communist Party (Parti communiste français) | PCF | 1,216,178 | 4.82 | 0 | 690,807 | 3.26 | 21 | |
| The Greens (Les Verts) | VEC | 1,138,222 | 4.51 | 0 | 677,933 | 3.19 | 3 | |
| Left Radical Party (Parti radical de gauche) | PRG | 388,891 | 1.54 | 0 | 455,360 | 2.15 | 7 | |
| Miscellaneous Left-wing | DVG | 275,533 | 1.09 | 0 | 268,715 | 1.27 | 6 | |
| Total "United Left" | 9,105,423 | 36.07 | 1 | 9,574,984 | 45.13 | 178 | ||
| National Front (Front national) | FN | 2,862,960 | 11.34 | 0 | 393,205 | 1.85 | - | |
| Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Traditions (Chasse, pêche, nature, traditions) | CPNT | 422,448 | 1.67 | 0 | - | - | 0 | |
| Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue communiste révolutionnaire) | LCR | 320,467 | 1.27 | 0 | - | - | 0 | |
| Workers' Struggle (Lutte ouvrière) | LO | 301,984 | 1.20 | 0 | - | - | 0 | |
| Republican Pole (Pôle républicain) | 299,897 | 1.19 | 0 | 12,679 | 0.06 | 0 | ||
| Other Ecologists | 295,899 | 1.17 | 0 | - | - | 0 | ||
| National Republican Movement (Mouvement national républicain) | MNR | 276,376 | 1.09 | 0 | - | - | 0 | |
| Miscellaneous | DIV | 194,946 | 0.77 | 0 | 13,036 | 0.06 | 1 | |
| Far-Left | ExG | 81,558 | 0.32 | 0 | - | - | 0 | |
| Regionalists | 66,240 | 0.26 | 0 | 28,689 | 0.14 | 0 | ||
| Other Far-right | ExD | 59,549 | 0.24 | 0 | - | - | 0 | |
| Total | 25,246,045 | 100.00 | 60 | 21,221,026 | 100.00 | 577 | ||
| Abstention: 35.58% (1st round), 39.68% (2nd round) | ||||||||
[edit] 12th Assembly by Parliamentary Group
| Group | Members | |
|---|---|---|
| UMP Group | 364 | |
| Socialist Group | 149 | |
| UDF Group | 30 | |
| Communist Group | 22 | |
| Non-Inscrits | 12 | |
| Total: | 577 | |
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