The French Primary Election: What lessons for British political parties?

A novel experiment in democratic participation is under way on the other side of the Channel. Following recent rule changes, the French Socialist Party (PS) has offered all registered voters the chance to vote on the party’s candidate to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy in next year's presidential poll. The first round of these new primaires citoyennes (citizen’s primary election) took place this past Sunday, with around 2.5 million people participating. The top two candidates – Francois Hollande and Martine Aubry – now go forward to a second, decisive round next week. This innovation comes at a time when the Labour Party has itself just taken a small step towards opening its own selection procedures to the public. The next time Labour selects a new leader or deputy, ‘registered supporters’ will be entitled to take part, although the share of the electoral college allocated to this group will be a measly 3%, perhaps rising to 10% later. The Conservatives also continue to debate the value of primary elections, following trials during parliamentary candidate selection processes before the 2010 election. But in both parties there remains scepticism about how far selection processes should be opened up beyond party members, while the Liberal Democrats have hardly considered this option at all. In this context, the experiment outre-manche looks rather bold. It also offers a number of lessons for our own political parties, as they seek new ways to engage with voters at a time of historically low electoral turnout and party membership. Lessons for the UK First of all, the PS primary certainly managed to capture the interest of the public and media. There was widespread press coverage of the campaign – to the detriment of President Sarkozy’s profile – and up to 5 million viewers watched a series of high-profile TV debates. This level of exposure can only be positive for the party in the run-up to the 2012 présidentielles. But it is also a welcome development for the political system as a whole, since it has facilitated an open, public debate about the direction the possible next President of the Republic should take in key areas such as economic management. Second, in terms of sheer turnout, the first round of the PS primary was seen as a success by most commentators. The PS has a similar membership base to the Labour Party – around 200,000 signed-up “militants”. The primary thus succeeded in reaching well beyond the party’s membership base, attracting over 2 million non-members to take part (though to put this in perspective, this represents a turnout of 6% of the overall electorate). Third, the PS process offers an interesting model for determining who to involve in party selection processes. One objection to primaries is that they are susceptible to sabotage by opponents of the party, who could use their voting rights to back an extreme or unpopular candidate. The PS approach was to require those wishing to participate to sign a declaration that they support the “values of the left” – more akin to Labour’s decision to restrict participation in future primaries to “registered supporters” of the party than to the Conservatives’ fully open primaries held in Gosport and Totnes in 2009. Fourth, in the PS primaires (as in the Conservative 2009 trials), an important safeguard was that the parties retained control of the nomination process. This was not a free-for-all in which any aspiring Président could throw their hat in the ring. Instead, candidates had first to attract the support of 5% of any one of five different constituencies within the party: MPs, national executive council members, mayors of large towns, or regional and departmental councils (with a requirement that a minimum degree of geographical spread). Fifth, voters were required to attend polling stations in person on the day of the vote. This raised slightly the barrier to participation but also increased the sense that participation required a degree of commitment to the process. By contrast, the Conservatives’ open primaries were conducted by post (indeed Freepost), achieved a turnout of 19% and 26% in the two seats. So the French process engaged significantly fewer voters as a share of the electorate, but the degree of engagement was perhaps deeper. Sixth, those wishing to participate had to make a contribution of at least €1. This nominal per-person fee raised a total of €3.5 million, enabling the PS to more than cover the considerable costs of the nationwide exercise – with over nine thousand polling stations established across France, and expensive electronic equipment purchased to collate the results. The high costs of primaries are one reason why British parties have used them sparingly so far. A user fee would be one way to overcome this problem that did not make recourse to public funds. Seventh, another criticism of primaries (heard in both the French and the British debates, including at our event at Labour conference, co-hosted with Progress) is that they reduce the value of joining a political party, by reducing the specific rights that membership confers. This is contested, since party members enjoy a range of other rights and since many join to advance the cause rather than for the specific powers they are granted. But it does point to the importance of gaining the consent of members for such radical procedural changes. In the PS case, this was secured by means of a postal ballot of all party members in 2009. Eighth, the PS primary opened out the selection process not only to non-members but also to some minors. Specifically, any voter who will be 18 come polling day next spring was entitled to take part, as were all junior members of the PS (from 15 upwards). This illustrates how primaries can be used as a place to trial other democratic innovations. In a similar way, the SNP recently announced that 16 and 17 year-olds will be enfranchised in the planned referendum on Scottish independence. Primary elections for mayors? Ninth, the PS primary is of course for the election of a position – that of President – that does not exist in the UK. The closest British parallel, and therefore the place to which lessons may most easily transfer, are party leadership elections. But perhaps the best early opportunity to trial innovations along the French lines will be during selection of candidates for the mayoral elections expected in large English cities in 2013. As with a presidential election, these polls will elect a single-person executive so are well-suited to the focus on individuals rather than parties that primaries tend towards. Primaries could also increase the legitimacy of those eventually elected to the brand new posts of mayors of Manchester, Birmingham and elsewhere. If this proves successful, parties might consider wider adoption including for parliamentary candidate selection. Tenth, in line with French presidential elections, the PS primary is using a two-round electoral system, which ensures that the victorious candidate has the backing of over 50% of voters. As Will Straw argued at our Labour conference event, the use of first-past-the-post (FPTP) for primaries is ill-advised, since it could lead to obscure candidates being selected with a very small share of the vote (depending on the number of candidates standing), undermining the legitimacy of the process. The French two-round system is unknown in the UK political system, but a similar outcome would be secured by AV, which is already used by all three main parties in some form in candidate selection and leadership elections (though the Tories opted for FPTP in Totnes and Gosport). Finally, as far as the PS is concerned, the litmus test will be whether the candidate that comes through the primary this coming weekend manages to wrest control of the Elysée Palace from the Gaullist right for the first time since 1995. The answer to this question will not come until next April/May, and even then whether the primary itself had a significant impact will be hard to gauge. But so far at least, the PS primaires seem to represent a success story in terms of media interest, public engagement and revenue raised for the party. Already, several senior figures on the French right have suggested that Sarkozy’s UMP party introduces something similar for the 2017 election. Our own party leaders can likewise find much to learn in their own quest to reconnect with lost voters and rebuild trust, in which tasks we wish them bon courage.