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PoliticsEuropean Elections 2009

On June 7th 2009 voters in France chose their Euro deputies. The total number of seats for France in the European Parliament is 72, out of 736 total seats. This is a loss of 6 seats from the last election in 2004. This loss is due to the admission of Romania and Bulgaria in the European Union. Deputies are elected for 5 year terms.

Voting is through the party-list proportional representation system. Voters vote for a list of candidates with seats being allocated to each list in proportion to the number of votes the list receives. Any list that gets more than 5% of the vote from a constituency gets at least one seat.

In 2009 there are a total of 161 lists with the Île-de-France having the most lists, 28. Also any list getting more than 3% of the vote will get state funds to pay for campaign costs.

The election of 2009 didn't excite the voters and turnout was very low - 41%. This can be blamed on a number of reasons, the biggest is probably the abstract nature of the European Parliament and the fact that most voters don’t know what the role of a Euro deputy is or how European law affects daily lives.

See photos related to the election.

Lists generally are organized by political affiliation. Here are some of the lists from the Sud-Est (Southeast) constituency.

For the 2009 European Elections France is divided into 8 inter-regional constituencies:

  • Nord-Ouest (North-West) 12 Seats: Basse-Normandie, Haute-Normandie, Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardie.
  • Ouest (West) 10 Seats: Brittany, Pays de la Loire and Poitou-Charentes.
  • Est (East) 10 Seats: Alsace, Bourgogne, Champagne-Ardenne, Franche-Comté and Lorraine.
  • Sud-Ouest (Southwest) 10 Seats: Aquitaine, Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées.
  • Sud-Est (Southeast) 13 Seats: Corsica, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur and Rhône-Alpes.
  • Massif-CentralCentre 6 Seats: Auvergne, Centre and Limousin
  • Île-de-France 14 Seats.
  • Outre-Mer (Overseas) 3 Seats: French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Guyane, Martinique, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Réunion, Saint Pierre and Miquelon andWallis and Futuna.

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