For people like me, general elections are the most important and the most gripping of events in the political calendar. It is not just that the ballot box serves as the hub of democracy, it is also because the process focuses each nation’s minds and ultimately plays on our emotions. Democracy is a wonderful mechanism to enable individuals freely, fearlessly and anonymously to determine by whom they will be governed!

By an extraordinary coincidence, in the last month there have been two such elections, each within a few days of one another, one in the UK, one in France.  Moreover, because I have homes in both countries with my personal roots embedded firmly in England and my summer ‘soul’ based in my adopted France, both elections have affected me enormously. This blog is about those two elections and how it has felt living through them. 

First to my feelings, which have ranged from bouts of anxiety to moments of elation, and while these emerged in both elections, the circumstances that prompted them have been very different in the two countries. My English self was hoping against hope that the months of opinion polls were correct and that the Labour Party would win the election and so form the next government. My French self, however was subsumed by the terrifying threat presented by a far right party – the Rassemblement National – which early polls suggested might win enough seats to take control of the Assemblée Nationale (France’s equivalent of the UK’s House of Commons ). Their threat was not trivial; if the extreme right were to win, we had plans to give up our Tréguennec home!  

In both countries, the announcements of the exit poll results on the nights of the actual elections meant that my dream of a Labour win in the UK and my hope that somehow – in this case through tactical voting – the extreme right would fail in France had both been met and the results in each country were greeted with enormous relief and the loudest of ‘yippees’.

But in addition to these personal feelings came powerful reminders of the democratic process itself as both current and aspiring politicians meet voters and treat them with respect as individuals and equals. At endless front doors, in the streets and market places and at public meetings, they are required to listen, explain and justify. And during all this, voters and candidates alike are bathed in up-to-date results of sophisticated opinion polls. 

And there is another dimension, increasingly the media plays an important role as it interviews party leaders and ministers, stages debates and provides critical opinion. Every aspect of what candidates say or how they perform is scrutinised. Here, the public is treated – or is it ‘over-treated’ – to ever-increasing critiques and insights!

It was Solon (see illustration), the Greek lawyer, statesman and philosopher, who introduced the system whereby individuals could vote and their say would then be added to those of hundreds (these day millions) of others to decide who would govern them for a set period. He could never have imagined the extent to which his proposal would be adopted and how it would still be widely used some 2500 years later. Moreover its role and acceptance in modern politics is seen as vital. In many constituencies, after the results were declared, winners and losers alike first accepted the outcome without question and then emphasised the importance of the ballot box as a crucial tool of democracy. The ballot box is a great leveller.

Moreover, Solon may not have realised how, after the votes are totted up, they can reveal worrying trends for the future. In the UK, because of the way votes are counted, the Labour Party has formed a government with an enormous majority of seats but with only around 34% of the popular vote. This bodes badly for its future. In France there was a similarly negative side. While the far right came third in terms of the deputies elected, their numbers were still thirty percent higher than those at the last election. At this rate, the results at France next time look threatening. 

Solon’s ballot box gives a snapshot of opinions at any one time and in the UK and France the recent results have given me reason to rejoice. However, hidden under the results in both countries, without change things look bleak.

The illustration is a sculpture of Solon, the Athenian lawmaker, statesman and philosopher who is credited with ‘inventing’ democracy 2500 years ago with citizens – mainly men – voting for their government.

For helping me write this blog I would like to thank Annie, Martin, Marie, Rohan and Vivien.

Footnote. The general election in France is a two-stage processes in which the numbers of candidates standing in the first round is whittled down to two or three for the second a week later. Tréguennec, with its 300 or so voters, had a turnout of around over 82%, on both occasions and gave the left its overriding support. For us, it gives great pleasure to live in such a left wing enclave which takes voting so seriously.