Hello Poupette, and thank you.
You are probably referring to the passage from today’s column by our journalist Solenn de Royer, where she writes: “that during the summer, François Hollande suggested to Emmanuel Macron that the introduction of proportional voting would be the best way to help the socialists dissociate themselves from the “insoumis””.
To return to your question, the reasoning behind François Hollande’s argument is surely based on the fact that a proportional vote allows for a fairer representation of the opinions expressed, particularly of minority parties, in proportion to the results obtained by the latter during a vote. A party that records momentum during a vote, such as the Socialist Party (PS) in the last legislative elections (increasing from 31 to 66 deputies) will therefore see its contingent of elected representatives increase more than with a majority voting method (which is moreover two rounds).
In fact, a proportional vote naturally favours strategies for asserting the independence of parties, which, regardless of their “size”, can try their luck at obtaining seats if they exceed a minimum threshold of votes (often 3 or 5%). This pushes each party to mark their differences, as happened on the left during the European elections – single-round proportional vote – where the left-wing parties launched themselves alone and where the PS-Place publique list, led by Raphaël Glucksmann, came in third place and first on the left.
A proportional vote therefore postpones the formation of tactical or programmatic coalitions until after the election in order to try to form a government, rather than beforehand, as happened during the legislative elections with the NFP. François Hollande, whose tactical and programmatic disagreements with LFI are well-known, thus believes that the PS, under these conditions, would not be “forced” to ally itself with LFI, which has constantly played the balance of power on the left based on the third place obtained by Jean-Luc Mélenchon during the last presidential election.
If you are interested in the subject of proportional representation, we recommend this long investigation and this interview:
