The first election for the
National Convention
The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year Nation ...
of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
was held in 1792. It established the nation's first government without a monarch.
The election of the deputies was held in early September and lasted three weeks; they were the first to be held under
universal male suffrage
Universal manhood suffrage is a form of voting rights in which all adult male citizens within a political system are allowed to vote, regardless of income, property, religion, race, or any other qualification. It is sometimes summarized by the slo ...
; royalist and
Girondin candidates were boycotted. To be an elector a citizen had to be over 21, resident one year in his department and not a domestic servant. An elector could stand as a candidate in any constituency. To be a delegate or a deputy an elector had to be over 25. If at the first ballot no candidate received an absolute majority of votes cast, there was to be a second ballot at which only the top two candidates of the first could compete.
According to
Malcolm Crook "Evidence of orchestrated attempts to intimidate rivals is not hard to find.
An absolute majority of the male deputies elected belonged to the ''
Marais'' party, a political faction of vague but largely moderate policies. The ''Montagnards'' or Jacobins received 200 seats and the republican, though more moderate Girondin faction 160 seats. According to Ian Davidson these are not hard numerical facts.
The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny, p. xiv
/ref> The election preceded the fall of the Girondins as a political faction, mainly because of the political and social unrest following the war started by the Girondin-dominated government in the spring of 1792.
Results
References
Election-Politique
{{French elections
Elections in France
1792 elections in France
18th-century elections in Europe
1792 events of the French Revolution
French National Convention