An atypical ‘honeymoon’ election? Contextual and strategic opportunities in the 2017 French legislative elections Jocelyn Evans, Gilles Ivaldi To cite this version: Jocelyn Evans, Gilles Ivaldi. An atypical ‘honeymoon’ election? Contextual and strategic oppor- tunities in the 2017 French legislative elections. French Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, 15 (3), pp.322-339. 10.1057/s41253-017-0040-y. halshs-01573233 HAL Id: halshs-01573233 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01573233 Submitted on 22 Feb 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. An atypical ‘honeymoon’ election? Contextual and strategic opportunities in the 2017 French legislative elections Jocelyn Evans (University of Leeds)
[email protected] Gilles Ivaldi (Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis)
[email protected] This is the authors’ version (pre-print) Abstract This paper places the 2017 French legislative elections in the broader context of confirMatory legislative elections in France. It argues that EmManuel Macron’s victory, whilst rooted in the specific political opportunity structure of the 2017 elections, is also a by-product of the broader institutional logic of ‘honeyMoon’ legislative races. We look first at key aspects relating to the confirMatory status of post-presidential elections in France, and ask to what extent the 2017 elections fit this Model.