1936 French legislative election

← 1932 26 April and 3 May 1936 1945 →
All 612 seats in the Chamber of Deputies 307 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	84.45%
Party Leader % Seats +/– Popular Front SFIO Léon Blum 19.86 149 +20 PCF Maurice Thorez 15.26 72 +60 PRS Édouard Daladier 14.45 111 −46 URS & DVG Marcel Déat 7.60 57 +20 National Front GR Pierre-Étienne Flandin 25.76 95 −39 UR Louis Marin 16.92 128 +52 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Government before Government after Albert Sarraut II PRRRS (Republican coalition) Léon Blum I SFIO (Popular Front)

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Legislative elections were held in France on 26 April and 3 May 1936, the last elections before World War II. The number of candidates set a record, with 4,807 running for election to the Chamber of Deputies. In the Seine Department alone, there were 1,402 candidates.^[1]

The Popular Front, composed of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), the Radical-Socialists, the French Section of the Communist International (SFIC), and miscellaneous leftists, won power from the broad Republican coalitions that had governed since the 6 February 1934 crisis. Léon Blum became president of the council.

Results

The SFIC, predecessor of the Communist Party, doubled its score from 11 SFIC and 9 Union Ouvrière deputies in 1932 to 72 in 1936. The party made gains in industrialized suburbs and working-class areas of major cities. They also progressed in rural central and southwestern France (e.g., Dordogne, Lot-et-Garonne) The Radicals lost votes to the SFIO and SFIC, but also to the right. The SFIO declined slightly. In working-class suburbs, the party declined, but it gained votes in Brittany, to the dismay of the right. Only 174 seats were elected in the first round, 424 were decided in a run-off. The right fared better in the second round.