In the municipal elections, parity should now apply to municipalities with less than 1,000 inhabitants

Three years after the National Assembly, the Senate finally voted, Tuesday, March 11, for the generalization of the list ballot in the municipal elections. The measurement imposes parity in the communes of less than 1,000 inhabitants. The government wants the law to apply before the municipal elections of March 2026.

The bill of ex-deputy Modem Elodie Jacquier-Laforge has aroused many debates and incomprehension among the senators, with very important divisions within each of the two groups of the majority alliance in the Senate, Les Républicains (LR) and the Centrist Union. The text finally collected 192 votes against 111, obtaining a fairly rare composite majority among senators, with socialist, macronists, centrist votes and a minority part of the LR group, after endless discussions.

Presented three years ago during its adoption at the Assembly as an initiative in favor of parity in the municipal councils, the bill intends to make ” jump “ The latest threshold that has resisted parity for twelve years, that of municipalities with less than 1,000 inhabitants.

Their mayors are still elected by the two -round multinominal majority ballot, with a “plug -in” system that allows citizens to scratch certain names. A practice sometimes nicknamed “pigeons”, denounced by certain elected officials because it would promote an approach “Punitive” Towards leavers.

The Minister of Rurality, Françoise Gatel, praised a “Opportunity to get out of the famous mix which too often leads to sometimes painful interpersonal oppositions within the municipal councils”. This text has “Vocation to enter into force on the occasion of the next municipal deadline of 2026”she assured, even if this will require at least a new passage through the Assembly.

Resistances in many senators

Very involved at the time during the examination of the deputies, the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, was satisfied on X of this new step: “It is time for women to take their place in local policy”she wrote.

The inter -municipal association of France, which supported the text as the association of mayors of France and that of rural mayors (AMF and AMRF), praised a “Big advance for the representation of women in elective functions”.

But the resistors were strong in many right -wing senators, centrists and communists. “We will upset rules which gave overall satisfaction” for the benefit of a “Almost unintelligible rule for our fellow citizens”Alarmed the LR Cédric Vial, his colleague Kristina Pluchet (LR) denouncing a “Parity in forceps, neither informed nor respectful of local expectations”.

Indeed, the text incorporates multiple parallel adjustments not very readable, supposed to respond to the difficulties known by many villages which lack candidates for the municipal elections. Thus, in these municipalities with less than 1,000 inhabitants, the lists will be “Revected complete”, Even if they have two less candidates than the legal total.

And a new device “Complementary elections” is created in the event that these small municipalities lose too many municipal councilors during mandates, with there too “Flexibility” In the joint lists deposited because they can count between two less candidates and two more candidates than the number of seats to be filled.