1919 French legislative election

none February 2022 1919 French legislative election French Third Republic legislative 1914 French legislative election 1914 1924 French legislative election 1924 16 and 30 November 1919 All 613 seats in the Chamber of Deputies 11,445,702 8,249,990 (72.08%) 160x160px Auguste Isaac Rhône Republican Union 201 105 1,819,691 22.33% 160x160px Édouard Herriot Rhône Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party 106 36 1,420,381 17.43% 15.18% 160x160px Ludovic-Oscar Frossard Seine (lost) French Section of the Workers' International 67 35 1,728,663 21.22% 4.25% Composition of the Chamber of Deputies Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau Independent Alexandre Millerand Independent Legislative elections were held in France on 16 and 30 November 1919, the first after World War I.Stuart Graham H. 1920 Electoral Reform in France and the Elections of 1919 https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400017743/type/journal_article American Political Science Review en 14 1 117–123 10.2307/1945731 1945731 145333985 0003-0554 subscription Electoral system Proportional representation by department replaced the two-round system by arrondissements in use since 1889. However, a provision of the system allowed a party to win all the seats in a certain constituency if it received over 50% of all votes cast. Campaign The formation of electoral lists needed to take into account of three factors: on one hand, the tendency of the opinion to think that the Union sacrée needed to be prolonged in peacetime in order to solve the new problems of France of the post-war period; on the other hand, the refusal of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), then in crisis, to discuss the question of Bolshevism. To preserve their unity, the Socialists decided in April 1919 not to conclude any agreement ahead of the legislative elections. This decision isolated the radicals, forced to give up a new alliance of the left, and allowed an aggressive campaign of the right and centre directed against the SFIO, accused of Bolshevism; finally, the persistence of partisan divisions within the right. The monarchists of Action française were isolated, but the nationalists, the Catholics, and the "progressives" (who are in fact the moderate republicans from the pre-war period) brought together the moderate republicans of the center-right, gathered in several small organizations, all members of Democratic Alliance, but rejected any possibility of an agreement with the radicals. The radicals were found stuck between the SFIO which hesitated between radicalization and the status quo, and a right more than ever anti-leftist. Following complex negotiations, 324 lists were formed. The Socialists chose homogeneous lists, while the radicals divided between lists allied with the center-right and isolated lists. The lists of the Bloc National gathered the members of the Democratic Republican Alliance, the progressives, the nationalists and the Catholics. Alexandre Millerand managed to gather around him a very broad coalition in his stronghold of the second sector of the Seine by advocating a reinforcement of the presidential powers. Results The results were confusing. Radicals, particularly when they were isolated, tended to decline, and the victory of the Bloc National was without ambiguity: a blue wave hit the Chamber of Deputies, called the "blue horizon chamber", because of the great number of ex-World War I servicemen who sat there (44% of the total of the deputies). This victory would remain the largest victory of the right and the centre-right until the 1968 legislative election. 60% of the deputies in this legislature were newly elected. File:Composition of the Chamber of Deputies France 1919.svg Republican Union 1819691 201 French Section of the Workers' International 1728663 67 Radical Party 1420381 106 Conservatives and independents 1139794 88 Democratic Republican Alliance 889177 79 Independent Radicals 504363 51 Republican-Socialist Party 283001 17 Independent Socialists 147053 5 Veterans 128004 2 2 Other parties 87963 101900 11445702 Mackie & Rose, France Politique References Popular Vote on France-politique.fr Parliamentary Groups on France-politique.fr Category:Legislative elections in France Legislative France