Is the voting system at the root of France’s political crisis? Interview with Herrade Igersheim
17 October 2025
On Friday, 10 October 2025, Herrade Igersheim was interviewed by Nelson Niermann on his radio programme ‘Dieu merci, c’est vendredi’ (Thank God it’s Friday), broadcast on RFC Lorraine Nancy (from 17’54”).
Since 2007, the CNRS research director has been studying various alternative voting methods and their impact on presidential election results. Faced with the emergence of a new concept that arose in 2002, that of tactical voting, the main driver behind this scientific approach is to try to propose ‘voting systems that allow voters to express themselves’ and to ‘vote more sincerely, according to their true convictions.’
This project is based on a carefully designed experimental protocol to test alternative voting systems as closely as possible to real electoral conditions. To this end, the protocol was deployed near several polling stations, in agreement with the municipalities, during each first round of the French presidential elections. This protocol has led to the following observation: the current voting system tends to favour the most divisive candidates, whereas an alternative voting system would sideline them in favour of more inclusive candidates.
Is changing the voting system the solution to the current political crisis in France?
