56%. According to a first estimate Elabe Berger Levrault for Le Parisien and BFMV , abstention reached a historic record this Sunday for the first round of municipal elections. This rate was only 36.45% in the previous election in 2014, and 33.46% in the previous election in 2008. Less than one in two electors therefore went to vote.
For Cevipof political scientist Bruno Cautrès, this score is not a surprise. It shows, in particular, the impact of measures announced Saturday evening by the government, such as the closure of restaurants and non-essential businesses.
What does this historically high level of abstention inspire in you?
It doesn't surprise me at all. There was a real dramatization of the situation by the government on Saturday evening, and an awareness of the French. Seeing all these shops and restaurants closed, they realized, in concrete terms, what Edouard Philippe had said.
And such a difference means that it is all the parts of the territory and all the categories of electorate that went to vote less. We will have to see if this mainly affects the abstentionist categories, like the youngest.
We imagine that the older ones particularly abstained?
We will see, but it is true that there is a contradiction in the speech of Emmanuel Macron [Thursday evening]. A few minutes apart, the head of state advised the elderly to stay at home, then he confirmed the holding of the first round of municipal elections this Sunday. However, the elderly are the ones who vote the most because they are the most socially integrated and the most geographically stable.
The mayors having collected 50% of the votes are, in theory, elected this evening. In view of the massive abstention, were they "badly elected"?
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No, there is no “poorly elected” mayor, because universal suffrage does not impose an electoral quorum. But these mayors will have to take into account the context in which they were elected.
Except that it is difficult to know if they will be truly elected because we do not even know if the ballot will be able to continue and if the second round will take place as planned.
In light of this record abstention, should the elections have been postponed?
It's always easy to play the game afterwards. We see that there was a very complicated game with multiple parameters that came into play, and the government found itself in an infernal vice of contradiction. But it is too early to say whether we should have postponed everything. I prefer to step back and wait for the end of the story.
In your opinion, should the second round, scheduled for next Sunday, be postponed?
I think we have to do it all over again, because the situation is going completely crazy and everyone has to come back to earth. We are moving towards an extremely complex problem. If we observe a worsening of the epidemiology and an acceleration of the number of deaths, the pressure will be very strong on the government so that it cancels everything and it will be very difficult for it to resist.