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The municipal and cantonal elections in France, 11 and 18 March, 2001

On March 11 and 18, two types of local election were held simultaneously for the first time in France: the municipal elections and the 'cantonal' elections, the former being by far the more important of the two. The municipal elections were held at the normal term of expiry of the six-year mandate held by local councillors, whereas the cantonal elections (held only in about half of the four thousand cantons due to the three year renewal cycle as explained below) should normally have been held a year earlier, in 2000. A decision had been taken however before the cantonales in 1994 to extend the mandate of the councillors elected that year exceptionally to seven years in order to make them coincide with the municipales, because of the phenomenon of 'voter fatigue'.' Municipal elections have typically been seen in France as a means of testing the popularity level of national governments, and this was particularly true of the elections in 1977 and 1983, both of which signalled great dissatisfaction with the parties in power. However, this should not overshadow the fact that since the decentralisation laws of 1982 which granted greater powers to mayors, municipal politics have become increasingly localised and personalised, and most academic research tends to support the view that in recent years at least, local issues have become more important than national ones (Criqui, 1996). Nevertheless, given that in 2002 there would be both presidential and legislative elections, the results of these municipal elections would clearly be of great interest to political leaders, though their predictive value was by no means immediately discernible, as will be seen in the later discussion of the results of these elections.