The first round of legislative elections should be marked by record abstention, estimated between 52.5 and 53%.

Participation in the first round of the legislative elections reached 39.42% on Sunday at 5 p.m. in mainland France according to the Ministry of the Interior, a figure down 1.3 points compared to 2017 when it stood at 40.75% .

It is also much lower, at the same time, than that of the legislative elections of 2012 (48.31%), as well as the participation in the first round of the presidential election of 2022 (65%).

Five polling institutes even predict for 8 p.m. a new abstention record for a first round of legislative elections, estimated between 52.5% and 53%, more than a point more than the previous record of 2017 (51.3% ).

Bastien Garcia, president of one of the city hall polling stations in Bordeaux, is “worried”.

“We see a lot fewer young people and first-time voters than in the presidential election, it is a ballot that is much more difficult for young people to understand,” he believes.

Young people and working classes

Arnaud Misaine, 32-year-old video game creator, explains to him that he has "voted little in the legislative elections" so far.

But this time "I had the impression that by voting, I would have more impact, that it would be more useful", says the computer scientist.

In Puy-de-Dôme, in the village of Saint-Georges-de-Mons, Frédéric Cordoba, 36, and Audrey Mertz, 39, voted for the first time in their lives in the presidential election and are doing it again for these legislative: “We decided to vote because life has become too hard and we hope that will change things”.

Abstention primarily affects young people and working classes.

At 5 p.m. this Sunday, Seine-Saint-Denis is the department that voted the least (27.7%).

In Douai (North), Micheline Delfosse, 90, went to vote at 9:30 a.m.

What matters to this dynamic retiree, trotting behind her dog, is above all "that the sick and the elderly are well taken into account".

For Henri Muceli, 53, who came by bike to his polling station in Thionville (Moselle), voting should be made “compulsory as in Belgium”.

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