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Paris-Lyon-Marseille Reform: Lyon residents will (finally) be able to vote for their mayor!

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The Editor

© Symeonidis Dimitrios / Shutterstock

After a journey filled with obstacles, the Parliament adopted on Thursday, July 10, the reform known as "Paris-Lyon-Marseille," which redefines the voting system for municipal elections in these three cities. But what does this actually mean for the 2026 elections (barring any censorship from the Constitutional Council)?

In 2023, to address a number of issues posed by the current voting system, some Renaissance deputies (that's Emmanuel Macron's party) are proposing to implement a reform in three cities in France divided into districts: Paris, Lyon, and Marseille. After numerous back and forths (and some conflicts) between the National Assembly and the Senate, the Parliament has finally come to an agreement, just a few days before the summer suspension of parliamentary work.


More power to the citizens

Currently, to elect the mayor of Lyon (or Paris or Marseille, but hey…), it works a bit like in the United States. Residents of a district vote for a local list of city councilors, and the elected officials at the top of the list sit on the district council and the city council, thus electing the mayor.

Mayor of Lyon. A fairly simple process that, however, takes away the direct decision-making power from the people of Lyon, and is particularly unfair since it doesn’t consider the number of residents per district, for instance.

With this new reform, Parliament hopes to return to a fairer system in the form of “1 resident, 1 vote.” Indeed, starting from 2026 (again, if the law passes the constitutional council’s review), during the municipal elections, voters will no longer have just one, but two envelopes to fill. In the first one, they will express their choice for the district council, and thus for the local mayor. In the second one, they will choose the municipal councilors and therefore the Mayor of Lyon, through a single constituency common to the entire city!


A little revolution

This New voting system will allow Lyonians to regain direct power and bring back meaning to the concept of direct universal suffrage. According to many elected officials supporting the project, it will also help lift some of the opacity that currently surrounds the municipal electoral system in these three major cities. Similarly, the new system will also give more opportunities to small parties by reducing the majority bonus (25% of the seats instead of 50% before the reform). They will be able to choose to run only in one of the two distinct elections, requiring fewer candidates on the lists. Shall we meet next year to test all this out? 😊