Editing Departments of France (section)

===Political party preferences===
These maps cannot be used as a useful resource of voter preferences, because Departmental Councils are elected on a two-round system, which drastically limits the chances of fringe parties, if they are not supported on one of the two rounds by a moderate party. After the 1992 election, the left had a majority in only 21 of the 100 departments; after the 2011 election, the left dominated 61 of the 100 departments. (Mayotte only became a department after the election.)
<gallery>
File:Cantonales_1998(dom).png|Party affiliation of the General Council Presidents of the various departments in the cantonal elections of 1998
File:Cantonales 2001.svg|Party affiliation of the General Council Presidents of the various departments in the elections of 2001
File:Cantonales 2004.svg|Party affiliation of the General Council Presidents of the various departments in the elections of 2004
File:Conseils généraux 2008.svg|Party affiliation of the General Council Presidents of the various departments in the elections of 2008
File:Conseils généraux 2011.png|Party affiliation of the General Council Presidents of the various departments in the elections of 2011
File:Presidents of French departments current.svg|Party affiliation of the General Council Presidents of the various departments in the elections of 2015
</gallery>
Key to the parties:
* [[Centrism|Divers Centre]] = Independents of the centre or [[Democratic Movement (France)|Democratic Movement]] (Mouvement démocrate)
* Divers Droite (DVD) = Independent conservatives
* Divers Gauche (DVG) = [[Miscellaneous Left|Independent left-wing politicians]]
* MPF = [[Movement for France]] (Mouvement pour la France) (right)
* Nouveau Centre = [[New Centre]] (centre or centre-right)
* PCF = [[French Communist Party]] (Parti communiste français)
* PRG = [[Radical Party of the Left]] (Parti radical de gauche)
* PS = [[Socialist Party (France)|Socialist Party]] (Parti socialiste)
* UDF = [[Union for French Democracy]] (Union pour la démocratie française) succeeded by Democratic Movement
* UMP = [[Union for a Popular Movement]] (Union pour un mouvement populaire)