THE French election should act as a warning to the UK about the dangers of First Past the Post (FPTP) which would have led to a victory for Marine Le Pen if it was in place across the Channel, a former MEP and MSP has said.
Christian Allard, who was born in Dijon and moved to Scotland in his 20s, said he was “delighted” with the result of the election on Sunday which saw the far-right National Rally pushed into third place despite Le Pen’s party clearly winning the first round of voting.
The left-wing New Popular Front alliance — led by Jean-Luc Melenchon — secured the biggest number of seats, but no party achieved the 289 needed to secure an outright majority.
Allard, who is now an SNP councillor in Aberdeen, told The National that the UK should reflect on how dangerous it could have been had FPTP been used in France, ultimately handing Le Pen power.
He spoke about the benefits of allowing the electorate to have two votes.
Asked about what the UK can learn from the election, Allard said: “Well first of all the system [FPTP] doesn’t work. Winner takes all doesn’t work.
“If you had the same system in France, Le Pen would be in power from the first round.
“You’ve got to let people do a protest vote, either with proportional representation or like in France with two rounds, but then you’ve got to be serious.
“If you let them have a protest vote and you only have one round like First Past the Post then you could get [a far-right government].
“It allows you to give a vote the party you prefer on the first round. You can either vote a protest, or you can have a very positive vote of ‘I’m going to vote for who I like’. Then second round, you just make sure you eliminate the people you don’t want to win. It’s a lot less risky than First Past the Post.”
The first round in France eliminates all candidates who fail to win the support of 12.5% of locally registered voters. Anyone who scores more than 50% of the vote with a turnout of at least a quarter of the local electorate wins automatically.
The second round is a series of run-offs fought either by two, three or sometimes four candidates.
There was plenty of talk of Le Pen’s National Rally getting an absolute majority after the first round, but the left alliance and Emmanuel Macron’s liberals agreed to collaborate and vote tactically to stop them from winning.
Allard said he was surprised to see the left get itself organised to “beat them [the far right] at any cost”.
He added that messages from celebrities such as footballer Kylian Mbappe proved crucial to the result after the striker pleaded with voters to stop “extremes” from coming into power.
Allard added: “Whatever system you have, the electorate is clever enough to make it work so the electorate knew what they were doing when they elected Macron, and they knew what they were doing yesterday when they gave the far right a big kicking.
“It shocked me the left got their act together because they haven’t got a good history of that.
“It’s not a good thing that the [centre] right didn’t get themselves together, I think they should have been a lot better at being against the National Front [National Rally].
“I’ve got to say a lot of the actors and sportspeople came out and said France should never vote for the far right and I think Mbappe was important in the middle of the Euros saying this is not acceptable.
“I have to congratulate Melenchon not just for the result but for agreeing to have a policy pact with the rest of the left.
“That shows that you have to stop these people, whatever you do. You have to beat them at any cost and if that means you have to vote for another political party you don’t agree with just to stop the far right, that is what you should do.”
