Presidential: the first three lessons from the result of the second round

Gaétan Supertino 8:53 p.m., April 24, 2022

The ballot boxes have spoken.

Emmanuel Macron was re-elected President of the Republic on Sunday against Marine Le Pen, with around 58%, according to estimates available at 8 p.m., after the second round of the presidential election.

A clear victory for the candidate president, nevertheless tempered by the tight gap, tighter than in 2017 (66.10% against 33.90%), between the two candidates, and by a high abstention (28%).

How to understand these results?

Europe 1 gives you, on the spot, the first lessons.

A victory due (in part) to the voters of Mélenchon

"It's a clear victory, but which, despite everything, is a victory with eight points less than in 2017", underlines, for his part, Bruno Jeanbart, deputy director general of the polling institute Opinion Way, guest d'Europe 1 and CNews on the occasion of election night.

"So we see how, in five years, the political landscape has changed and it's a clear victory which can be explained in particular by the fact that this evening, around 50 of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's voters voted for Emmanuel Macron, 25 for Marine Le Pen and 25 did not choose between the two candidates. And therefore, under these conditions, it was impossible for Marine Le Pen to hope to win very well", he develops.

The leader of rebellious France, who had called, four times during his speech on the evening of the first round, "not to give a single path to Marine Le Pen", therefore played a key role.

And he seems to be well aware of it.

As soon as the results were announced this Sunday evening, he opened the legislative ball.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon called on left-wing voters "to beat Emmanuel Macron during the third round (the legislative elections)" and to "elect him Prime Minister. He wants "the expansion of the popular union".

Marine Le Pen already looking to the future 

The unfortunate finalist of 2017 and 2022, too, is already looking to the future.

Without a death to salute Emmanuel Macron's victory, Marine Le Pen intends to continue "her commitment to France and the French".

"Tonight we are launching the great electoral battle of the legislative elections. I will lead this battle alongside Jordan Bardella, with all those who had the courage to oppose Emmanuel Macron in the second round, with all those who have France pegged to the body", she added, during her speech, a few minutes after the announcement of the results.

"The ideas we represent are reaching new heights (...) The result in itself represents a resounding victory," she said from her electoral headquarters on Sunday evening.

This is the third presidential election out of five in 20 years where a member of the Le Pen family, heiress of the Maurrassian right, reaches the second round.

But, unlike 2002 and 2017, the "republican front" is no longer as mobilizing and the vote in favor of Mrs. Le Pen becomes "more and more a vote of adhesion and not of protest", underlines Frédéric Dabi, director of the Ifop institute, interviewed by AFP.

With a campaign focused mainly on purchasing power, the candidate was able to speak to a popular electorate and broaden her base, as evidenced by her results overseas (nearly 70% in Guadeloupe, 60.8% in Martinique, 60, 7% in Guyana...).

It now intends to continue its momentum for the legislatures. 

Despite a mandate shaken by crises, Emmanuel Macron wins

Admittedly, abstention is high.

Admittedly, Marine Le Pen scores better than five years ago.

Certainly, the voices of the left were decisive.

But the main lesson of this second round remains the victory of the candidate president.

For Emmanuel Macron, his re-election is a form of achievement after a first five-year term, however marked by crises, from "yellow vests" to Covid.

Its victory places the country in continuity on its main economic orientations, on its role in the European Union and in international relations.

He will celebrate it at the Champ-de-Mars, opposite the Eiffel Tower, where several thousand people had gathered at 8 p.m., waving hundreds of French and European flags.

However, this victory does not give him a blank check for the next five years, when colossal challenges await him, against a backdrop of war in Ukraine and galloping inflation.

Thus 46% of French people express "a negative feeling" about this re-election, according to an Ipsos-Sopra Steria poll released on Sunday evening.

Already, the president-candidate has promised to renew himself in depth, both in form and in substance.

A necessity at the head of a France cut in half, or even in three in view of the number of voters among the 48.7 million called to the polls who chose to shun the voting booths on Sunday, in this 2017 remake organized while the three school zones are on vacation.