Abstention is no longer "a clumsiness, a fault"

• Abstention will again be one of the most commented on phenomena after the presidential election organized on 10 and 24 April.

  This is one of the polls that is the most mobilizing in France, but voters, mostly young and from the working classes, remain on the sidelines.

• If abstention was born at the same time as the right to vote, it has increased, especially since the end of the 1980s.

• In 1907, in the daily newspaper

  Le

  XIXe siècle

  , one could read: “Abstentions are explained in various ways.

  But the root cause of the abstentions, their direct, crucial cause, is the lack of enthusiasm, it is skepticism about the value of the ballot paper.

  »

A few days before the first round of the presidential election, April 10, 2022, it is safe to say that abstention will still be high.

In 2017, in the first round, it was 22.23% and the presidential election is a high-stakes election that traditionally attracts more participation than other intermediate polls.

However, is strong abstention really new in French political history?

goes back in history with the help of Retronews, the press site of the National Library of France, and specialists in the subject to understand how to explain that certain citizens shun the ballot box.

From 1848, when universal male suffrage came into force, until the First World War, the population was in a phase of education in electoral citizenship.

“This is conquered, learned, it does not happen in a decade, points out Celine Braconnier, professor of political science specializing in abstention and director of Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

This requires support for compulsory free education, dedicated to learning certain dimensions of citizenship and also the structuring of political formations that support the incitement to vote.

»

"Vote today with discipline, vote democrat!", Launched the

Petit Troyen

in 1937

In the

of February 20, 1876, a few decades after the establishment of universal suffrage, Francis Charmes, deputy of Cantal, castigates the attitude of abstainers: "In a country of universal suffrage, the Abstention is a clumsiness and a fault: one must, if necessary, between two evils, choose the lesser”.

“Gradually, we move to a mobilization by collective organizations that are the political parties in the process of formation.

And there which aims to integrate into citizenship all men with the right to vote, including those furthest from political life, those who have not been to school, details Céline Braconnier.

All of this takes time.”

The progressive framing of the populations, one feels it by reading in the

of October 17, 1937, in a tense pre-war context, a direct appeal to leftist voters “your abstention, even involuntary, benefits reactionaries and admirers of fascism.

Vote today with discipline, vote democrat!

Citizenship cannot be decreed but is built gradually over the course of history.

"Electoral participation is the product of learning, both on the scale of contemporary history and on the scale of individuals", sums up the specialist. 

The 1980s, political disenchantment

For her, the end of the 1980s marked a turning point.

The great alternation promised by the coming to power of François Mitterrand in 1981 led to great disillusion.

“And then it will only get worse because the right/left political alternations will have the effect of arousing a kind of political disenchantment since people have the impression - that's what they say - that it doesn't matter that whether left or right, their life does not change completely, not enough,” analyzes the political scientist.

And if the hope for change is dwindling, the desire to travel to vote too... This analysis is not new.

In the daily newspaper

, one can read in the edition of August 4, 1907: “Abstentions are explained in various ways.

But the deep cause of the abstentions, their direct, crucial cause, is the lack of enthusiasm, it is the skepticism about the value of the ballot paper.

»

Another element that the professor of political science highlights is the transformation of the world of work, and in particular deindustrialization.

“The deployment of a world of services much less favorable to collective organization, she reports.

All of this has repercussions in terms of the disintegration of the political and union framework which has repercussions on political participation.

» And in particular on that of the working classes because the surveys show that people who are qualified, politicized and rather economically comfortable have a better chance of taking part in elections regularly, without needing to be encouraged to do so. 

The presidential election, a still mobilizing ballot

“The municipal and presidential elections are those which collect the most participation because they are the most readable”, estimates Jean Petaux, political scientist from Bordeaux, pointing to the last regional and departmental ones, as counter-examples.

“The presidential election in France remains an election which, until 2017 in any case, is very massively mobilizing even if the level of participation has fallen since 2007 but very gradually compared to other elections”, reports Céline Braconnier.

Abstainers can participate, sometimes by deciding at the last moment, in particular "because the campaign is of much greater intensity, that it is relayed by many more media to a wider population", she adds.

The youngest assume today not to participate in an election.

“Incivility is no longer stigmatizing, observes Jean Petaux.

The social control of the neighborhood no longer comes into play.

" By reading

, of December 21, 1938, one can measure all the disapproval which, at that time, aimed at those who remained away from the ballot box: "The citizen who, in a democracy, holds in his hand this formidable weapon which is called the ballot paper, and who, through indifference, laziness or fear, does not exercise his right to vote, betrays, at the same time as his own interests, those of the Republic itself.

»

Lowering the right to vote to 16?

Currently, the oldest categories, even if among them some are just as disillusioned as the youngest, continue to fulfill their civic duty.

"A third of the participation is explained by habit", reports Céline Braconnier.

This is the reason why she is in favor of lowering the legal age to vote from 16 years old.

“We are more supervised and in better conditions to start our electoral career”, she summarizes.

For the professor of political science, it would be necessary to accompany these years, in particular by rethinking the role of the school via a reform.

Our file on the 2022 election

And still according to her, to convince these young voters to vote in the shorter term, it would also be necessary to deal with the themes which concern them, such as climate change which is not at the heart of the debates of this presidential campaign.

"But the candidates have an interest in targeting the populations of which we are sure that they will go to vote", underlines Céline Braconnier.

A circle that may seem vicious…

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Mis-registration on electoral rolls

An administrative constraint, that of re-registering each time you move, instead of automatic registration on the lists, also affects participation.

"We keep away millions of [5 million] and badly registered [7.6 million]", argues Céline Braconnier.

And it is the most mobile, therefore students, young workers and young executives who are the most affected by these poor registrations.

Of course, automatic registration on the lists would not solve everything, but it would make it possible to gain a few participation points, especially since in France only expatriates and prisoners can vote by post.

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