Grand Council BE Additional Grand Council seat for francophones in Biel-Seeland in sight

The French-speaking minority in the Biel-Seeland constituency will probably be able to claim a fifth seat on the Bernese Grand Council in future. The cantonal parliament has voted in favor of a new formula for calculating the number of guaranteed seats.

On Monday, the council passed a corresponding amendment to the law on political rights at first reading by 143 votes to 4. The right of francophones to "adequate" representation in parliament is guaranteed in the cantonal constitution. What "adequate" means is defined at legislative level.

Previously, they were guaranteed as many mandates as their percentage share of the total population of the constituency. Now, only the German and French-speaking population is to be included in this calculation, but not other languages.

It is also planned that bilinguals will in future be counted equally in the German- and French-speaking population shares. If the demographic distribution remains the same, the new calculation would lead to an additional guaranteed seat for francophones.

The new rules are to be applied for the first time in the Grand Council elections in March 2026. In the 2022 elections, francophones were guaranteed 4 of the 27 seats in the Biel-Seeland constituency.

SDA