Today is the final day of horse-trading before the final lists are drawn up ahead of the 2nd round of the French municipal elections next Sunday. A second round is necessary where nobody won an absolute majority of votes in the first round. In Lyon, six out of the nine arrondissements produced an outright winner, so only a 3rd of the city needs to vote again on Sunday, though the Socialists already have enough councillors to take overall control and vote the sitting mayor, Gerard Collomb, in again. He's basically been re-elected on the basis of his record over the last 7 years. A large majority of les lyonnais approve of recent council policies and initiatives, such as the redevelopment of the banks of the Rhône, and the innovative bike scheme, Velo'V.
The elections take place according to a highly complicated system, which I'm not sure I've entirely grasped, but will nonetheless attempt to explain. Firstly, voters don't vote for individual candidates, but for 'lists' which are put forward (by established political parties, or local groups) to cover the number of seats for the council as a whole. However, pvillages of less than 3500 inhabitants have slightly different rules. Voters can cross off names from a list, and add their own choice from a different list ie effectively make up their own lists. All very French...
And then there are slightly different rules again for France's three big cities - Paris, Marseille and Lyon. Each is divided up into arrondissements which are treated as 'communes' in their own right (each has its own council and mayor), but then a city-wide council and mayor is made up from those for each arrondissement. Which apparently can lead to somewhat quirky results, such as happened in Lyon in 2001, when the Socialists won 42 of the 73 seats with 48.5% of the vote in the second round while the right wing list won more than 50% of the vote but only 31 seats. This time round there's no such anachronism, with the PS winning well over 50% of votes in the first round alone.
Lists who fail to get more than 10% of the vote in the first round are eliminated from the 2nd round, which leads to a lot of political manoeuvring in the two days following the first round. In a lot of towns this year, the support of the MoDems, the centrists, is up for grabs, and they appear to be handing it out on a place by place basis. In some towns they're supporting the left wing, while in others they're supporting the right. All very French...
And finally, most complicated of all is the method of allocating seats to lists, which as far as I can tell, makes sure that the 'winning' list, be it via an absolute majority in the 1st round or via a simple majority in the 2nd round, ends up with a clear majority of council members. No such thing as hung councils here...
