ABSTRACT
The institutions of the Fifth Republic secure a measure of bipolarisation in four important respects. First, though the constitution, in limiting the second ballot of a presidential election to the two leading candidates, does not quite enforce bipolarity (there is no specification that one must be a right-winger and the other from the ranks of the Left), it at least strongly encourages it. Second, a parallel to the second rounds of presidential elections is provided by the elimination from second ballots of parliamentary elections of all candidates who have won less than the votes of 12.5 per cent of registered voters. In each case the voter, having chosen freely at the first round, is firmly invited to vote for the candidate (s)he finds least undesirable at the second.
