France is going ahead with the remainder of its municipal elections on 28th June. This excellent paper by International IDEA and others explains the background.

In short, there are about 35,000 municipal bodies (local councils) in France, the vast majority of which are very small – with fewer than 1,000 voters. They elect councillors in a two round system. The first of these rounds was held on March 15th and the second was scheduled for a week later.

The first round was held the day after President Macron instituted a lockdown. The problem was that the law in France did not allow for the elections to be postponed. When turnout fell dramatically, the political parties agreed by consensus to postpone the second round and this was subsequently confirmed by a new law.

More than 30,000 councils didn’t need a second round as the winners had secured more than 50% of the vote in the first. But there remained almost 5,000 municipalities (including the biggest cities) which did.

The emergency law decreed that the second round needed to be held by the end of June. If not, it implied that the elections should be scrapped altogether and started from scratch as soon as possible. But it was unclear whether this would apply to those municipalities where the elections were ‘finished’ as well as those which needed a second round.

In the event, President Macron and French political leaders have decided that the second round can go ahead on June 28th – before the deadline. This comes as lockdown is being eased cross the country. What will happen to turnout – particularly among older sections of the population – remains to be seen as France does not make provision for early, home or postal voting.