Presidential run-off the day after May Day: the government keeps 2 May, the Republic must protect both the street and the ballot box

The government will not budge. After Wednesday's Council of Ministers on 28 October, its spokesperson Maud Bregeon ruled out any change to the presidential election calendar, which Bruno Retailleau has been insistently demanding. The second round will therefore remain set for Sunday 2 May 2027, the day after May Day. Behind this quarrel over dates lies a more serious question than it seems: what does it say about the Republic when moving an election out of fear of the street is even considered?

The facts

The dates were set by the Council of Ministers at the start of the summer. According to the official website Service-public.fr, the first round will take place on 18 April and the second on 2 May 2027, a day earlier in several overseas territories. As AFP explains, the Constitution requires the vote to be held between 20 and 35 days before the end of the current term, which left two options: 11 and 25 April, or 18 April and 2 May. With spring school holidays spread, depending on the zone, from 3 April to 2 May, neither was perfect. A close aide to the head of state told AFP that the choice aimed at the highest possible turnout.

The dispute arose after the violence of 17 October, during which 2,201 shops were vandalised according to the chambers of commerce (CCI) quoted by AFP. On 19 October on BFMTV, Bruno Retailleau called the 2 May date "bad" and said he was "stunned" by the choice, suggesting that this calendar could be used to throw the election into chaos. He repeated on Wednesday morning on Europe 1: "The dates must be changed". According to AFP, the Rassemblement national makes the same criticism through Louis Aliot, who argues that the May Day union marches would break the neutrality needed on the eve of the vote.

The government responds with confidence. As reported by LCP, Maud Bregeon said there was "no reason to change these dates", adding that the State had shown last weekend that it knew how to "have the upper hand".

The positions

The right's argument deserves to be taken seriously. A run-off is often decided in the final hours, and images of violence played on a loop the day before could weigh on the vote. According to AFP, several parties reminded the Prime Minister that 2 May was not the date they had suggested during consultations, and a centrist MP said this concern should be heard. Town halls, for their part, are worried about organising proxy votes around a public holiday weekend, notes the law firm Landot & associés.

But the law leaves very little room. As LCP details, the second round takes place on the fourteenth day after the first: it cannot be moved on its own without revising the Constitution. Only the first round can still be brought forward to 11 April, through a new decree convening voters published no later than ten weeks before the vote, which would also require revising the rules on campaign financing and speaking time. Public law doctoral researcher Robin Delcourt points out on LCP that only exceptional circumstances allow the administration to depart from the law, and considers this scenario unlikely. As for the risk to the fairness of the vote, lawyer Anne-Charlène Bezzina considers it relatively contained.

The analysis

A sense of the State demands resisting the temptation. May Day is not a scheduled riot: it is Labour Day and a constitutional right, the right to demonstrate, exercised every year by hundreds of thousands of workers, mostly peacefully. Equating union marches with the rioters of 17 October would be unfair to the former and do too much honour to the latter. Moving a presidential election to avoid a march would amount to admitting that the State can no longer guarantee two fundamental freedoms on the same weekend. That is precisely what no republican should accept.

One must also be careful about the suspicion of calculation. Bruno Retailleau sees this calendar as a manoeuvre favouring the left. No source establishes such an intention, and the explanation given by the executive, the constraint of school holidays, can be verified. Changing the rules of the game six months before the vote, at the request of candidates, would set a far more worrying precedent than a march on the eve of the vote.

Even so, Maud Bregeon's formula is not enough. A "strong" State must be strong for everyone. Mediapart reported that on 24 October far-right activists attacked marches in full view of police officers, which Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez firmly disputes, according to AFP. Security on 1 May 2027 will therefore be judged by the protection of demonstrators as much as by that of shop windows.

Conclusion

Rather than reopening the calendar, the government would do well to publish the decree convening voters without delay, to present to Parliament a security plan for the weekend of 1 and 2 May, and to make proxy voting easier. Unions and parties, for their part, could publicly commit to holding peaceful marches and not turning them into campaign rallies. Guaranteeing both the right to march and the right to vote: is that not, in the end, what national cohesion means?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.