1914 French legislative election

1914 French legislative election
All 592 seats in the Chamber of Deputies; 297 seats needed for a majority
Prime Minister before election; Gaston Doumergue; RI	Elected Prime Minister ; René Viviani; PRS

Legislative elections were held in France on 26 April and 10 May 1914, three months before the outbreak of World War I. The Radical Party, a radical and increasingly centre-right party, emerged as the largest party, though, with the outbreak of the First World War, many in the Chamber, ranging from Catholics to socialists, united to form the Union sacrée.

The elections saw 192 new members elected.^[1]

Alexandre Ribot, a member of the Republican Democratic Party, negotiated a government on 9 June 1914, but its perceived overly-centrist leanings lead much of the left-wing of the Radical Party to rebel against it, bringing it down on the day it was presented to the chamber. Ribot was quickly succeeded by René Viviani of the Republican-Socialist Party, who formed a centre-left government on 13 June, only four days later.

Results


Party		Votes	%	Seats
	Republican Union	1,588,075	18.84	96
	Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party	1,530,188	18.15	140
	French Section of the Workers' International	1,413,044	16.76	103
	Independent Radicals	1,399,830	16.60	96
	ALP–PN–Reactionaries	1,297,722	15.39	73
	Republican Left	819,184	9.72	57
	Republican-Socialist Party	326,927	3.88	27
	Others	56,086	0.67	0
Total		8,431,056	100.00	592

Valid votes		8,431,056	97.62
Invalid/blank votes		205,511	2.38
Total votes		8,636,567	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		11,185,078	77.22
Source: Mackie & Rose,^[2] Nohlen & Stöver^[3]

^ Le Matin 12 May 1914
^ Thomas T. Mackie & Richard Rose (1991) The International Almanac of Electoral History, Macmillan, pp128–130
^ Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p691 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7