In Marseille, Jean-Luc Mélenchon fills up … abstention too

The left in the lead, Emmanuel Macron who is struggling to convince and a Marine Le Pen in sharp decline.

For once, the results of the presidential election in Marseilles are different in many respects from the national trend.

returns to the main lessons of this election in the Marseille city.

Mélenchon forever

“The love story between Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marseille continues”, slips with euphoria Mohamed Bensaada, LFI Marseille activist close to the deputy.

On the evening of the first round, Jean-Luc Mélenchon indeed won over 31.11% of Marseille voters, and slipped to the top of the podium.

A historic score: if he had already finished in first place in 2017, his score for 2022 is seven points higher.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a hit, especially in six downtown districts and in the northern districts.

In the fifteenth arrondissement, more than one in two voters voted for the LFI candidate, compared to 36.9% in 2017.

In the second and third arrondissements where he was elected deputy, the vote even looks like a plebiscite, with a score of 46.52% and 58.45% respectively.

"It's clear, clean and precise," rejoices Mohamed Bensaada.

He was criticized for not being there often in Marseille, but he was always getting news, and the Marseillais returned it to him.

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A record abstention

This is one of the other notorious facts of this presidential election.

In Marseille, a city where abstention is already historically higher than the national average, the number of voters who shun the ballot boxes continues to grow at a frantic pace.

For this presidential election, a vote which nevertheless mobilizes the French the most with the municipal elections, nearly 32% of Marseillais did not go to vote.

This is ten points more than in 2017, and a record in the history of presidential elections in Marseille in the 21st century.

In 2002, when nationally the participation had been particularly weak, this abstention rate was only 21.28%.

In some districts, such as the popular third, only 57.26% of voters went to their polling station this Sunday.

"In Marseille, everything is amplified, exaggerated, excessive," says Mohamed Bensaada.

The strong abstention in Marseille reflects the opposite side of this non-campaign, during which the democratic debate was blocked by the Ukrainian question.

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No "Marseille in a big way" effect for Emmanuel Macron

During a point with a few journalists, including

, on the sidelines of a trip to Marseille this Thursday, a few days before the first round, the Minister for the City Nadia Hai had been very clear.

“If the president is not re-elected, there will be no more Marseilles in general.

Whether with the extreme left or with the extreme right, there will be no republican continuity.

“A direct way to make billions promised by Emmanuel Macron last September to help Marseille in terms of housing or transport an electoral argument.

However, it is clear that the repeated attachment of the President of the Republic to the second city of France, whether sentimental or financial, did not convince all the voters to vote for him.

The outgoing President of the Republic comes in second place, far behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon, with 22.62% of the vote.

"I don't think the election was based on that criterion, at least in the first round," said Pascal Chamassian.

On the other hand, for the second round, the difference will perhaps relate to the one who is strongly committed to Marseille.

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The siphoning of the local right, however, seems to bear fruit on their land.

In Marseille, Emmanuel Macron is thus in the lead in the seventh, eighth, ninth and twelfth arrondissements, i.e. the rather well-to-do neighborhoods of Marseille, and bastions of the right.

In the eighth arrondissement, Emmanuel Macron achieved his best score in Marseille, with 31.85% of the vote, eight points more than in 2017, when François Fillon won 34.59% of the vote.

Conversely, in this district, the candidate LR Valérie Pécresse obtains only 4.13%.

A score symptomatic of the collapse of the right, since, throughout the city of Marseille, Valérie Pécresse only obtained 3.01% of the vote.

In 2017, 19.81% of Marseillais voted for François Fillon, and 26.63% for Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012.

The RN struggling

Contrary to the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, where Marine Le Pen comes first in the votes, the voters of Marseilles did not vote overwhelmingly for the National Rally, as they had done during the European elections.

Since then, the RN has been in difficulty in the second city of France, and only two districts, the 10th and the 11th, have placed Marine Le Pen at the head of the votes.

Across the city, the candidate thus recorded 20.88% of the vote, nearly four points less than in the first round of the presidential election, and a score substantially identical to that obtained by Stéphane Ravier in 2020, then candidate RN in the last municipal elections.

A Stéphane Ravier who has since moved to Eric Zemmour, whose score in Marseille testifies to the existence of a real local pool of voters for the far right.

The Reconquest candidate recorded 11.09% of the vote in the Marseille city, a score four points higher than the national average.

“We faced a candidate who walks on our toes, launches Franck Allisio, RN municipal councilor of Marseille and adviser to Marine Le Pen.

It is even exceptional that it makes such a score in this context.

If anyone should be disappointed, it's Eric Zemmour's side and not us.

“As many voices also which could refer to Marine Le Pen who, in 2017, in the second round, had conquered 35.58% of Marseille voters.

Find all the results of the first round of the

2022

Elections

Presidential 2022: "The 1st round was our vote ...", in Marseille voters automatically removed from the lists

Policy

Presidential 2022: What is Macron and Le Pen's agenda between now and the second round?

• Jean-Luc Melenchon

• Abstention

• Presidential election 2022

• Marseilles

• Paca