At Stake in this Election: 

• The Office of the President of the French Republic 

Government Structure: 

• Chief of State: President Emmanuel MACRON (since 14 May 2017) 
• Head of Government: Prime Minister Jean CASTEX (since 3 July 2020) 
• Assembly: The French Parliament (Parlement français) is a bicameral legislature consisting of an indirectly elected upper house, the Senate (Sénat), and a lower chamber, the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale). 

Electoral System: 

• The President of the Republic is elected for a five-year term using a two-round system. If a candidate fails to receive a majority of the ballot during the first round of voting, a second round is held between the two candidates who received the most votes to determine the winner. [1]
• The Prime Minister is appointed by the President of the Republic. [2]
• The 348 seats in the Senate (Sénat) are determined through indirect election and serve for six years. Using a mixed system of voting, senators are elected through indirect universal suffrage by electoral colleges. A two-round, first-past-the-post method is applied to the 70 metropolitan and overseas departments that fill one-three senatorial seats. Proportional representation is applied to the remaining 39 metropolitan and overseas departments filling four or more senatorial seats. [3]
• The National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) consists of 577 members: 556 for metropolitan France, 10 for overseas departments, and 11 for French citizens residing abroad. Members are directly elected using a single-member majoritarian system, which occurs in two rounds. A candidate may win their seat in the first round if they win an absolute majority, under the condition that this number is equal to or greater than a quarter of registered voters in their constituency. Candidates are eligible for a second round of voting should they have obtained a vote share equal to at least 12.5% of the total number of registered voters. If only one candidate meets this benchmark, then the candidate with the second highest vote share qualifies for the second round of voting. [4]

Last Election: 

• The last round of presidential elections were held on 23 April 2017 and 7 May 2017. 

Main Candidates in this Election: 

• Candidate: Emmanuel MACRON 
  • Party: The Republic on the Move (LREM, LaREM, REM) / La République En Marche! (often shortened to En Marche!)  
• Candidate: Marine LE PEN 
  • Party: National Rally (RN) / Rassemblement national 
• Candidate: Jean-Luc MÉLENCHON 
  • Party: Unsubmissive France (FI, LFI) / La France Insoumise 
• Candidate: Éric ZEMMOUR 
  • Party: Reconquest! (R!) / Reconquête! 
• Candidate: Valérie PÉCRESSE 
  • Party: The Republicans (LR) / Les Républicains 
• Candidate: Yannick JADOT 
  • Party: Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV) / Europe Écologie Les Verts 

Population and Registered Voters: 

• Population: 68,305,148 (2022 est.) [5]
• Registered Voters: 48,803,175 (9 March 2022) [6]

Gender Data: 

• Female Population: 34,621,892 (2020 est.) [7]
• Is France a signatory to CEDAW: Yes (signed 17 July 1980) [8]
• Has France ratified CEDAW:  Yes (ratified 14 December 1983) [9]
• Gender Quota: For the directly elected National Assembly (Assemblée nationale), the difference between the number of candidates of each sex presented by a party within France’s 577 single-member constituencies cannot exceed two percent. [10]
• Female candidates in this election: Four out of twelve [11]
• Number of Female Legislators: 228 out of 577 (40 percent) in the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) [12]  
• Human Development Index (HDI) Position: Rank 26 at 0.901 (2020) [13]
• Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Categorization: Very low [14]

Disability Data: 

• Is France a signatory to CRPD: Yes (signed on 30 March 2007) [15]
• Has France ratified CRPD: Yes (ratified on 18 February 2010) [16]
• Population with a disability: 9,422,135 (2022 est.) [17]

[1] https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/infographie_election_pr_vaccess_en_cle814c2a.pdf

[2] https://www.gouvernement.fr/en/how-government-works

[3] https://www.senat.fr/lng/en/senators/the_senatorial_elections.html

[4] http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/2113_B.htm

[5] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/france/#people-and-society

[6] https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/6322895#onglet-2

[7] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/france/#people-and-society

[8] https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx?Treaty=CEDAW&Lang=en

[9] Ibid.

[10] https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas/country-view/86/35

[11] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/5/french-election-who-are-the-presidential-front-runners

[12] https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas/country-view/86/35

[13] https://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/FRA

[14] https://www.genderindex.org/country-profiles/

[15] https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/TreatyBodyExternal/Treaty.aspx?Treaty=CEDAW&Lang=en

[16] Ibid.

[17] http://www.electionaccess.org/en/resources/countries/fr/all/