Does the white vote upset the “republican front”?
Analysis of the results of the second round of departmental and regional elections, which took place on Sunday, shows that the blank vote is progressing between the two rounds ... especially where the National Rally is in a duel.
This is particularly obvious in the Provence-Alpes Côte d'Azur region, under the spotlight, where outgoing LR president Renaud Muselier and RN Thierry Mariani clashed. In the region, the blank vote represents 4.8% of the vote (6.8% if we take into account the null vote), up two points compared to the first round. In this region, the only one in metropolitan France where voters had the choice between only two lists, the highest share of blank votes is thus recorded, ahead of Normandy (2.90%) and Center (2.86%).
The demonstration is also true for the departmental ones.
According to an analysis of the results of the second round, we see that the share of white votes is higher when there is the National Rally (5.07% on average) in the equation than when there is not (4, 94%).
A slight difference to put into perspective with the (slight) burst of mobilization between the first and the second round when the RN is present in the second round.
Other figures: between a first and second round, the number of blank votes increases by 54% without the RN, by 65% with the RN.
Read also The winners and losers of the departmental
The demonstration is being verified, locally, in several cantons. In that of Orange, in the Vaucluse, the blank vote represents… 26.7% of the votes! This can be explained by the configuration of the second round: two far-right parties faced each other, the National Rally on one side and the victorious Southern League on the other. In Isère, in the canton of Charvieu-Chavagneux, 12.1% of the votes (15.6% with null votes) are blank votes… The Republicans, victorious, and the National Rally clashed there.
In Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), Andernos-les-Bains (Gironde), L'Isle-Adam (Val-d'Oise), Pontoise (Val-d'Oise), Montereau-Fault-Yonne (Seine-et -Marne), Péronne (Somme) or even Nangis (Seine-et-Marne), the number of white votes jumped compared to the first round.
All these cantons have in common that they saw the National Rally qualified for the second round.
From RN to blank vote, is the protest vote changing?
“The Republican Front is running out of steam, analysis with Parisian Christèle Lagier, political scientist at Avignon University and specialist on the far right. Blank votes and null votes, which are sometimes a more radical way of expressing one's rejection, are the work of voters who did not want to choose, who refused to take a position. "In Paca," there are probably left-wing voters, to whom we told
you have no choice, you must vote Renaud Muselier
, who voted white. "
"People are fed up with all political parties, shenanigans, unnatural alliances, alliances with those that the parties criticized a few days earlier, petty tricks ..." explains Stéphane Guyot, president of the White Vote Party. "Those who vote white say:
No candidate suits me
," he adds. The protest vote cannot be solely that of the RN. "
Stéphane Guyot is campaigning for the blank vote to be recognized for the upcoming elections, and in particular the presidential one, "convinced" that such a measure would make it possible to counter abstention, at a record level.
An online petition launched to push the National Assembly to take up the subject brought together almost 7,000 signatures on Monday.
Such a measure could however be a thorn in the side of the RN which over the years has emerged as a vote of rejection of the entire political class.
"A barometer of mistrust"
Already, during the 2017 presidential election, the white vote had made an unprecedented breakthrough, even though a large majority of parties called for a stand against the far right. He alone gathered more than 8.5% of the vote (11.5% with null votes) in the second round, while Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen clashed. In 2012, during the second round, with Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, blank and null votes (we only count the blank vote since 2014) represented only 5.8% of the votes.
Christèle Lagier wonders: "The difficulty with the blank vote, is how do we read it? It is a barometer of mistrust, but the individuals who vote white do not always have the same sensitivities, the same ideas or the same reasons for protest and rejection. "And the expert continues:" No political party has any interest in recognizing the blank vote because it would be sawing the branch on which they are sitting ... "