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What is the European Parliament? Answer that question in our companion article.

The European Parliament Election (June 6-9 2024) is the second biggest election in the world in terms of number of voters, only India has more. The objective is to elect the 720 members of the European parliament, thus it concerns 27 countries.  Since France has 81 seats, each list in France from each of the 38 parties (or lists) presenting candidates must have 81 members alternating strictly between men and women, for a total of 3078 candidates in France alone. The lists are organized vertically following their leader.

This is a proportional election. First a list must achieve at least 5% of the vote (in 2019 that was 6 lists of the 34 total).  Then according to the percentage of the vote won by the party the first X% of candidates from each list will go to parliament. The French lists are required to have 81 members each just in case one list sweeps the vote and thus wins all …

European Parliamentary Elections are a hot topic. But What does the European Parliament do? The European Parliament is an elected body of 720 members proportionally from each of the 27 European states. France has 81 deputies. They are elected for 5 year terms. As of the last election in 2019, the youngest MEP was Kira Marie Peter-Hansen of Denmark, who was 21 at the time. She is also the youngest person ever elected to the European Parliament. The oldest MEP ever was Manolis Glezos (see tidbits below) from Greece who was 92 when elected in 2014. The Parliament is an important forum for political debate and decision-making at the EU level and acts as a co-legislator, sharing with the Council the power to adopt and amend legislative proposals and to decide on the EU budget. It also supervises the work of the Commission and other EU bodies and cooperates with national parliaments of EU countries to get their input. The European Parliament is the guarantor of freedom, equality and…