The French Primary Election: What lessons for British political parties?

A novel experiment in democratic participation is under way on the other side of the Channel. Following recent rule changes, the French Socialist Party (PS) has offered all registered voters the chance to vote on the party’s candidate to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential poll. The first round of these new primaires citoyennes (citizen’s primary election) took place this past Sunday, with around 2.5 million people participating. The top two candidates – Francois Hollande and Martine Aubry – now go forward to a second, decisive round next week. This innovation comes at a time when the Labour Party has itself just taken a small step towards opening its own selection procedures to the public. The next time Labour selects a new leader or deputy, ‘registered supporters’ will be entitled to take part, although the share of the electoral college allocated to this group will be a measly 3%, perhaps rising to 10% later. The Conservatives also continue to debate the value of primary elections, following trials during parliamentary candidate selection processes before the 2010 election. But in both parties there remains scepticism about how far selection processes should be opened up beyond party members, while the Liberal Democrats [...]