A right which still grabs the ground, two thirds of reelected outgoing, a parity which progresses only at the margin … The departmental councils, renewed last Sunday during the departmental elections, appointed this Thursday, July 1, their presidents. Friday, it will be the turn of the regional presidents to be elected.
68 presidents from the right, 27 from the left
The right, which ran 65 departments out of 95 (including overseas) during the previous mandate, now controls 68, against 27 for the left. The right has thus delighted Alpes de Haute Provence and the Finistere, both left for twenty-three years, and conquered the Val de Marne, the last stronghold of the Communist Party, which he had led since 1976. The right also rocked the Puy de Dome, a bastion of the left which has known only two alternations on the right since 1945: between 1973 and 1976 then between 1992 and 1998. Conversely, the left has snatched two departments to the right: the Charente and the Côtes-d’Armor.
The fate of three departments was still undecided until the vote appointing the presidents of the departmental councils on Thursday. THE’Ardeche, on the left since 1998, has fallen into the hands of the various right-wing Olivier Amrane, taking advantage ofs voice of a pair of independent elected representatives. It is also an independent pair that allowed Republicans to keep the Vaucluse.
In Seine-Maritime, it is the outgoing president, Bertrand Bellanger (LREM), who won after a third round of voting, at the head of a center-right coalition. Socialist candidate Pierrette Canu could have been elected for the benefit of age, but elected Communists did not give her their support.
A limited renewal
Overall, a majority of departmental presidencies remain identical to those of the previous one. Out of 95 presidents, 64 are reappointed. In other words, only a third of the departments welcome a new president.
Regarding parity, this new term does not do much better than the previous one. At the end of the 2015 ballot, there were 15 women and 80 men. Today there are 18 women and 77 men. Several departments see for the first time a woman at the head of the executive, like Florence Dabin in the Maine-et-Loire, Marie-Agnès Petit in Haute-Loire, Dominique Santoni in the Vaucluse or Sylvie Marcilly in Charente Maritime.
In terms of age, the re-election of many presidents naturally leads to a slight aging of the average age of presidents at the time of their election. They were on average 56.7 years old in March 2015, against around 59 years old in 2021. Aged 35, the youngest president is Sébastien Lecornu, Minister of Overseas Territories and elected at the head of the departmental council of the Eure. Conversely, there are 12 presidents aged 70 or over.
The list of department presidents
To find out who will hold the presidency of your department for the new term of office, consult our search engine in the table below.