2015 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regional election


The 2017 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regional election took place from December 6 to 13 to renew the 123 members of the regional council.
On the first round, the Front National with Marion Maréchal-Le Pen as its candidate arrive ahead with 40.6% of the vote, 14 points ahead of the right-wing candidate Christian Estrosi and 24 points ahead of the incumbent party, the PS, whose candidate decided to withdrew his list from the second round, to allow Christian Estrosi a one-on-one round with the FN.
On the second round, the right won the most votes, but the FN achieved more than 45% of the vote, the best result to date of the far-right in any region.
The right took the Presidency after 17 years of socialist rule with Michel Vauzelle.

Voting system

The regional elections are held in direct universal suffrage using proportional representation lists. The election is held over two rounds, with majority bonus. The lists must be gender balanced by alternatively have a male candidate and a female candidate from the top to the bottom of the list. Only lists with as many candidates as available seats in every departement of the region may compete.
Following the 1999 and 2003 electoral reforms, with a first implementation in 2004, a two-round runoff voting system is used to elect the regional presidents. If no party gets at least 50% of the vote in the first round, a second round is held, which any party who got at least 10% in the first round may enter. Lists that obtain at least 5% of the vote in the first round may merge in the second round with a 'qualified list', which includes candidates from each merged list.
At the decisive round, the leading list receives a premium of 25% of the seats while the remaining seats are distributed among all lists who received at least 5% of votes. Thus, the majority bonus allows a leading list to have an absolute majority of seats in the Regional Council from one third of votes in the second round. The seats are distributed among the lists at the regional level but within each list, seats are allocated by departement branch in proportion to the number of votes in each department.
In the regional council there are 123 members, and they are elected in the 6 departments(4 members for Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, 4 for Hautes-Alpes, 28 for the Alpes-Maritimes, 47 for the Bouches-du-Rhône, 27 for the Var and 13 for Vaucluse

Opinion polls

Results

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur uses a two-round runoff system to elect the regional president, and if not candidate win at least 50% on the first round there are another and definitive round.

First round

The first round election was held on 6 December 2015.

Second round

Runoff elections were held on 13 December 2015 in regions where no candidate was able to win outright in the first round.
Christian Estrosi won the second round with nearly 55% of the vote, thanks to the withdrawal of the left-wing list of Christophe Castaner.

Distribution by departments