| > which combines proportional representation in a 1st round No it doesn't. The french parliament is elected in 577 single member constituencies by a 2 round system: in the 1st round, voters vote for any candidate. If no candidate wins >50% of all the votes in that constituency, a 2nd round is held, where candidates that came 1st or 2nd or got >12.5% of the vote, in the 1st round, can run. Thus the French 2 round system is similar to Instant Runoff Voting, except that it isn't instant. As an example of how the French system isn't proportional, En Marche got 32% of 1st-round votes but 61% of seats. > for the powerful presidency Presidential elections, like any other election that elects 1 candidate cannot in principle be proportional, because each party must either win 100% or 0% of the candidates elected. > When it became clear that the far-right would be the largest single party No, the National Front only got 13.2% of 1st round votes (and only ended up winning 8 seats, 1.4% of the total). They were nowhere near being the biggest party. |
Sure they can, and any system in which a majority of first-preferences guarantees a win is proportional for a one-seat body.
Proportionality doesn't say a whole lot for a single-seat election, though.