Editing Primary election (section)

===France===
The means by which the candidate of an established political party is selected has evolved. Until [[2012 French presidential election|2012]], none of the six [[President of the French Republic|Presidents]] elected through direct election faced a competitive internal election.

* The right didn't hold often primary elections to decide for their national candidates.
** In 2007, [[Nicolas Sarkozy]], President of the [[Union for a Popular Movement|UMP]], organized an approval "primary" without any opponent. He won by 98% and made his candidacy speech thereafter.
** In 2016, [[The Republicans (France)|The Republicans]] held, on 20 and 27 November, primaries to decide of their presidential candidate for [[2017 French presidential election|2017]].
* On the left, however, the [[Socialist Party (France)|Socialist Party]] of [[François Mitterrand]] has been plagued by internal divisions since the latter departed from politics. Rather than forming a new party, which is the habit on the right-wing, the party started to elect its nominee internally.
** A first try in [[1995 French presidential election|1995]]: [[Lionel Jospin]] won the nomination three months before the election. He lost in the run-off to [[Jacques Chirac]].
** The idea made progress as the 2007 race approached, once the [[2005 French European Constitution referendum|referendum on a European constitution]] was over. The latter showed strong ideological divisions within the left-wing spectrum, and the Socialist Party itself. This prevented the possibility of a primary spanning the whole left-wing, that would give its support to a presidential candidate. Given that no majority supported either a leader or a split, a registration campaign, enabling membership for only 20 euros, and a [[French Socialist Party presidential primary, 2006|closed primary]] was organized, which [[Ségolène Royal]] won. She qualified to the national run-off that she lost to Nicolas Sarkozy.
** In 2011, the Socialist Party decided to organise the first ever [[French Socialist Party presidential primary, 2011|open primary]] in France to pick the [[Socialist Party (France)|Socialist party]] and the [[Radical Party of the Left]] nominee for the [[2012 French presidential election|2012 presidential election]]. Inspired by the [[Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008|2008 U.S. primaries]], it was seen as a way to reinvigorate the party. The idea was first proposed by [[Terra Nova (think tank)|Terra Nova]], an independent left-leaning think tank, in a 2008 report.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tnova.fr/essai/pour-une-primaire-la-fran-aise |title=Pour une primaire à la Française &#124; Terra Nova |access-date=2015-02-11 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150122103828/http://www.tnova.fr/essai/pour-une-primaire-la-fran-aise |archive-date=22 January 2015 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> It was also criticized for going against the nature of the regime. The open primary was not state-organized : the party took charge of all the electoral procedures, planning to set up 10,000 voting polls. All citizens on the electoral rolls, members of the [[Socialist Party (France)|Socialist party]] and the [[Radical Party of the Left]], and members of the parties' youth organisation ([[Young Socialist Movement|MJS]] and [[Young Radicals of the Left|JRG]]), including minors of 15 to 18 years old, were entitled to vote in exchange for one euro to cover the costs. More than 3 million people participated in this first open primary, which was considered a success, and former party leader [[François Hollande]] was designated the Socialist and Radical candidate for the [[2012 French presidential election|2012 presidential election]].
* Other parties organize membership primaries to choose their nominee, such as [[The Greens (France)|Europe Ecologie – Les Verts (EE-LV)]] (2006, 2011, 2016), and the [[French Communist Party]] in 2011.
* At the local level, membership primaries are the rule for Socialist Party's candidates, but these are usually not competitive. In order to tame potential feud in his party, and prepare the ground for a long campaign, Sarkozy pushed for a closed primary in 2006 to designate the UMP candidate for the 2008 election of the [[Mayor of Paris]]. [[Françoise de Panafieu]] was elected in a four-way race. However, she did not clinch the mayorship two years later.