Nearly 6,300 candidates are running in France’s 577 constituencies in the June 12-19 general election. Many of them claim to belong to a party that aims to win a majority in the National Assembly, either alone or in a coalition. Hence the importance of the political nuances that the Interior Ministry attributes to each candidate: The worldwho believed that the decisions made by Place Beauvau were problematic, proceeded to his own classification.

In order to be able to take part in the general elections, each candidate submitted before the 20th a file in the prefecture of his constituency. In this document it is possible to join a party or political group by choosing from a list of 42, some of which are well known (Socialist Party, PS; Together!; National Rally, RN, etc.). and others more specific (Bâtir le pays Martinique, Union of French Muslim Democrats, etc.). This allows access to public aid and participation in the official audiovisual campaign – which involves the distribution of speaking time according to the political weight of the parties.

An alliance for togetherness! but not for nupes

After submitting all the files, the state agencies assign the candidates a political nuance, listed among the eighteen in a circular from the Minister of the Interior dated 13. Some belong to a single party (Rassemblement national, Les Républicains, etc.); others to party groups. The prefectures have a grid of criteria that they use to select the shade that a “simple administrative reference” and can ” differ not only by declared political designation, but also by party affiliation and are also attributed from an analysis of the candidate’s political career”exactly to World the prefecture of Loire Atlantique

The coalition Together!, which brings together several formations supporting President Emmanuel Macron around La République en Marche, is shaped by the prefectures as such. But that’s not the case of the Nupes (New Popular Ecologist and Social Union), which denounces a “election manipulation” and regret that “The macronist camp has decided to separately count the votes collected by candidates from La France insoumise (LFI), Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV), the Socialist Party (PS) or the French Communist Party (PCF). .. The parties concerned have lodged a summary complaint with the State Council, the hearing is scheduled for Friday 3 June.

The Home Office justifies not having created the Nupes shadow because of the alliance “brings together candidates who have been invested independently of the parties associated with this agreement”. “These parties he adds also present themselves independently, as evidenced in particular by the publicly funded associations and the audiovisual campaign.. Unlike Ensemble! does the Nupes not have a single booster club for all the candidates it dubs; everyone had to indicate their party of origin (LFI, PS, PCF, EELV, Generations) when declaring their candidacy. “These elements meant that these candidates were not united under a single political nuance”further specifies the ministry adding that this same logic “has led to the independent appearance of Republican candidates and candidates of two different shades [Union des démocrates et indépendants] UDI, despite an agreement between these two political parties”.

“Ecologists” bringing together EELV and the Animalist Party

The official list distributed by the ministry does not currently allow voters to know exactly under which “colors” some of the candidates in their constituency are running. Does the PS candidate belong to the Nupes coalition or is he a dissident? What about EELV candidates being considered in a single shade by the ministry? “Environmentalist” Grouping with representatives of CAP 21, the New Democrats or the Animalist Party, who have very different identities and political programs.

Other political formations have also been watered down in one or more shades. This means that 72 of the Pirate Party’s applications were placed in the category ” various “13 inches “Regionalists” (A certain number, according to three prefectures we contacted, have declared themselves as the Party of Union of Regions and Peoples in Solidarity and group regionalist parties), 8 in “various links”1 in “different centers” and 1 inch “various extreme leftists”. The same applies to the candidates of the Animalist Party or other formations, which are classified in different shades depending on the prefecture.

Finally, there remains the case of those who consider the choice of ministry to be wrong. In Paris, for example, the candidate Quiterie de Villepin was surprised the assignment of the nuance “different centers”, she who isevening as “independently” and said he ticked the box ” various “ when submitting your application.

A collective work of renaming

Under these conditions, it is impossible to accurately report the results of the elections on June 12 and 19 from 8 p.m. In fact, the results are expressed according to these nuances, which do not allow to say clearly how the votes of the French are divided, so different from the political reality are the nuances maintained by the Ministry.

To write the World, it was important to provide readers with as detailed information as possible. On May 12, the Decoders and the Political Service published a first work verifying the official nominations submitted by some parties and coalitions. We have built on this working basis to begin renaming the full list of 6,293 nominations as accurately as possible. published by the Ministry of the Interior on the evening of May 23rd. Not without difficulties: this is a considerable amount of work, which is then supplemented by information from the correspondents of the World, fine connoisseurs of local personalities and their ways. A database that we update daily and that we make available to anyone who wishes in open data at this link.