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French villages required to enforce gender parity in local elections

France's parliament on Monday adopted a bill that will extend the 'gender parity' system to municipal elections in small communes. The hotly debated bill received 192 votes in favour (111 against) in the Senate, and it passed the Assemblée with 206 votes for (181 against). Municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants represent 70 percent of France's towns and villages. In town councils, women only represent 37.6 percent of elected officials, compared to 48.5 percent in larger cities. The new gender parity requirement will change the way people in small towns in France vote for their local representatives, bringing it in line with requirements already in place for larger towns and cities. Advertisement How does voting in small municipal elections work? Until now, councillors in towns with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants were elected through a majority vote system , which was intended to be held in two rounds (though sometimes it ends up being one round). The system allowed votes to be counted by candidate, so a candidate could have presented themselves alone or as part of a group. Vote-splitting (voting for candidates on different lists) and preference voting (deleting names) has been permitted, and voters were also allowed to write in the names of preferred candidates. This is called a panachage system. The general idea is that in smaller areas, it can be harder to find people to stand for election. For example, if there are only the exact number of candidates as there are seats available, then voting will go directly to the second round. READ MORE: What you need to know about France's (very complicated) municipal elections How will parity requirements change the voting process? The legislation will take effect from 2026 (the next scheduled municipal elections). At this time, small towns will be treated like any other larger municipality. Basically, this means that voters will have to choose between fixed lists, which have equal gender distributions. This means that mixing candidates from different lists and crossing people out would not be allowed. READ MORE: Does France practice 'diversity, equity and inclusion'? MPs from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) Party and the right-wing Les Républicains have criticised the push for gender parity in small municipal elections, with some calling for it to only be applied after 2032. "In many municipalities, there will only be one list, so there will be no choice for voters," RN MP Jordan Guitton told the French press . Advocates, like MP Delphine Lingemann from the centrist party MoDem, said: "[Gender] parity must not stop at the gates of large cities."