"It's going to be very difficult": Rural elected officials concerned about the requirement for parity in municipal elections for municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants

For municipalities with more than 1,000 inhabitants, the requirement for parity in municipal elections has been a reality since 2013. A major new feature of the election to be held next year is that this rule will now apply to all municipalities, including those with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants . In total, nearly 25,000 municipalities are affected by the law promulgated this Thursday, May 21 .

But the bill is not viewed favorably by some rural elected officials. A demonstration was even organized in front of the Ministry of Rural Affairs on Friday to express their opposition. Their fear? That the creation of municipal lists, an already complicated exercise in these villages, will become even more of a headache.

Interviewed by BFMTV, Roger Wallart, mayor of Tournedos-Bois-Hubert, a village of 450 inhabitants in the Eure department, is among the elected officials concerned about this new imperative. His current municipal team is composed of nine men and two women. Since lists must include at least nine candidates in municipalities with 100 to 499 inhabitants, four of them will therefore have to be women for the 2026 municipal elections. "Even half of nine is going to be very difficult for us...", he predicts.

Franck Santois, mayor of La Barben and president of the rural mayors of Bouches-du-Rhône, pointed out to BFMTV the potential ethical problem that the law could pose. "For example, if you take (a municipality of) 200 inhabitants and you take four people per family, that makes 50 families. At some point, you risk finding yourself a bit stuck because you'll have to 'tap' into the same families" to create a list, he suggests.

The law, although adding additional criteria, is nevertheless considered essential by Joseline, an employee at the town hall of Tournedos-Bois-Hubert: "It seems very important to me that women are represented. It's a shame that we need to pass a law to make this happen."

Michel Fournier, president of the Association of Rural Mayors of France, also considered it a "shame" to achieve parity through a legal obligation and considered this development to be logical.

"This requirement exists in all other national, departmental, regional, and even municipal elections with populations exceeding 1,000," he recalled on BFMTV. "I don't see why an exception would be made in our category of fewer than 1,000 inhabitants."

Himself mayor of the village of Voivres, in the Vosges, he highlights the fact of having presented a gender-balanced list since his first election in 1989, even though his commune has fewer than 300 inhabitants. For him, the requirement for gender balance "is not an additional constraint," and opposition to the text stems from "local conservatism." The major problem in forming a list, in his view, is broader: "Today, there are fewer and fewer people, men or women, who want to get involved in making society work."