“Some of the voters risk staying out of the electoral game”

• The abstention rate recorded on Sunday is higher than that recorded in 2017 (25.44%) and represents a record since the presidential election of 1969 (31%).

• Tristan Haute, lecturer in political science at the University of Lille, explains that young people vote less than their elders, as do people belonging to the working classes.

Never, for fifty-three years, has such a strong abstention been recorded in the second round of a presidential election.

The record dates back to 1969, when left-wing voters had, at the call of the communist candidate eliminated in the first round, massively refused to choose between Georges Pompidou and Alain Poher.

This Sunday, just over one in four voters (28%) shunned the duel between outgoing President Emmanuel Macron and RN candidate Marine Le Pen.

This is more than five years ago (24.44%), and more than in the first round this year, on April 10 (26.31%).

What are the causes and consequences of such demobilization?

To find out,

interviewed Tristan Haute, lecturer in political science at the University of Lille.

What is the profile of the people who abstained from voting on Sunday?

The first surveys show that young people have, as finally in each election, abstained more than their elders.

There is a generational effect because this low participation persists, including among 25-34 year olds.

We are beginning to see an effect linked to the level of diploma: the most qualified people – who belong to the higher socio-professional categories – participated more in the ballot.

And people belonging to the popular categories – who are unemployed, employees, workers or poorly qualified – have become more demobilized.

This is fairly consistent with what we know about the social profile of abstainers from election to election.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who arrived in 3rd position in the first round, had called for no ballot to be given to Marine Le Pen, without however calling for Emmanuel Macron to be chosen.

Did his voters massively abstain?

Part of the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, but also of Valérie Pécresse or other small candidates, who were not satisfied with the offer of the second round, seem to have turned away from the polls.

We had already observed this in 2017, in a fairly similar configuration: there had been an upsurge in abstention between the two rounds, which was quite unprecedented since 1969. And we observed this phenomenon again this year, in a smaller scale.

What we also saw on Sunday was that a part – no doubt quite substantial – of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's voters turned to Emmanuel Macron to block Marine Le Pen.

Does this weak mobilization mark the end of what has been called the Republican Front?

It has already been seen, from this point of view, in 2017. This does not mean that the Republican front has completely disappeared, but the presence of a far-right candidate is no longer enough, as had been the case in 2002, for overmobilization in the second round.

On the contrary, we have rather a demobilization, with the impression undoubtedly, for certain voters, that Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron have close positions, are interchangeable, and that they are not satisfied.

In view of the large number of voters who did not move, will the elected president have to change his way of governing?

This may cause him to be a little more cautious.

On the other hand, the legal legitimacy of his election remains completely unchanged.

What should worry Emmanuel Macron is rather to have been elected with votes that went to his name and that are not membership.

From a democratic point of view, should we worry about such demobilization?

We must be worried because normally, the presidential election is the most mobilizing, the one in which voters continue to vote.

This turnout has been declining since 2007. What we fear is that some French voters – perhaps a quarter, we'll see – remain completely outside the electoral game.

And they will remain completely out of the electoral game in 2022 when we vote several times.

What do you think are the reasons for this abstention?

Generational renewal explains the fact that voting is increasingly intermittent.

There is a much more distended relationship to the vote, less ritualized, considered less effective by the younger generations.

There is also a fairly old phenomenon that is developing, no doubt because of the social difficulties that a large number of French people may encounter.

It is a feeling of political illegitimacy, of distance with regard to politics.

Before, even if we weren't interested in politics, we still went to vote on Sunday.

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Not that easy

• Presidential election 2022

• Emmanuel Macron

• Marine Le Pen

• Vote

• Ballot

• Abstention

• Miscellaneous facts