Very clever were those who could have predicted the results of this evening.
The 2022 vintage of the presidential election promised to be uncertain;
he kept all his promises.
And the consequences of this first round on French political life could be major.
Three political forces are strengthened.
The others, almost destroyed or marginalized, will have to try to rebuild themselves.
Here is everything you need to remember from this first round.
1/Le Pen - Macron, second round
Bis repeated.
As in 2017, it is therefore Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen who will face each other in the second round.
A duel dreaded in recent months by all the candidates on the left, who have never managed to agree on a common project, but also by the traditional right (see below).
The RN candidate, however, had to deal this year with the presence on the starting line of Éric Zemmour.
She has remained constant on her stated priority, purchasing power, and she has managed to present a less "demonized" image to part of the electorate - her program nevertheless remains quite radical, particularly on immigration .
Emmanuel Macron comes out of his first round in confidence, reinforced by his lead acquired this evening against his opponent.
Several polls have however shown that the French do not want such a return match.
“They didn't want this duel and were expecting somewhat new and innovative candidates, but the casting was not in that direction,” analyzes political scientist Bruno Cautrès.
Read alsoSecond round of the presidential election: pensions, immigration, taxation ... what opposes Macron and Le Pen
According to a first Ipsos Sopra Steria survey carried out for Le Parisien, France Télévisions and Radio France this Sunday evening, Emmanuel Macron appears to be the favorite with 54% of voting intentions, against 46% for Marine Le Pen.
2/Low turnout
The experts expected a low turnout, it is confirmed.
74% of voters went to the polls on Sunday, according to our Ipsos Sofra Steria estimate.
This is significantly less than in 2017 (77.8%), 2012 (79.5%) and 2007 (83.8%).
We have to go back to 2002, and the “thunderclap” of the qualification of Jean-Marie Le Pen, to find an even lower turnout in a presidential election (71.6%).
This disenchantment can be explained by several reasons, including growing distrust of the political class.
“This increasingly high abstention confirms a form of disavowal of the political offer, especially among young people who are very critical of the fact that elected officials do not meet their expectations.
The idea that French society is unfair is in the majority in France”, develops political scientist Luc Rouban, recalling that abstention “is always multifactorial”.
The Covid and then the war in Ukraine have also, in recent weeks, put the electoral campaign on hold.
3/Mélenchon, a galvanizing failure
The tribune of insubordinate France has completed his first-round campaign counting down from his start of the campaign.
A few months ago, you shouldn't talk to him about a union of the left.
And then, as time passed, Jean-Luc Mélenchon became the only candidate on the left capable of threatening a second round which gradually imposed itself in the polls, the Macron - Le Pen.
So he chose to bet everything on the “useful vote” card, made up of “effective voting” by his teams.
From a statistical point of view, his bet is successful.
He obtains a better score this evening than that obtained in 2017, and seems to have siphoned off the electorates of the other left-wing candidates.
"He has not been undeserved because he is progressing in percentage and he is establishing himself as the one who represents the left, it is an important day for La France insoumise", judge Bruno Cautrès.
In 2017, Jean-Luc Mélenchon had failed in fourth place, 600,000 votes from the second round.
This time, the rebellious candidate turns more than ever into the third man in this presidential campaign.
4/Zemmour, the polls were not wrong
The days preceding the first round, Zemmour constantly castigated the polls, which he considered "false".
While opinion polls undeniably have their limits, especially since many voters can decide in the last days or even in the last hours before the election, such an attack is exaggerated.
Five years ago, the average of the polls two days before the first was quite close to the final results, and the order between the 4 main candidates was the right one.
This year either, the polls were not “mistaken” concerning Éric Zemmour.
The Reconquest candidate obtained around 9% of the voting intentions over the last few days, and he finally collected a little more than 7% of the votes at the ballot box.
“It's a big failure for him, who planned to put Marine Le Pen into oblivion.
Even if he scores much higher than that of Valérie Pécresse, he did not kill the game in his project to embody a new leadership on the right, ”analyzes Bruno Cautrès.
5/ Pécresse, the berezina
As a symbol of the announced rout, the LR tenors did not scramble to accept invitations to the TV set this Sunday evening.
Valérie Pécresse, victorious in the primary last December, obtained less than 5% of the vote this Sunday, according to our latest estimate available.
"She was caught in a pincer movement between the extreme radical right, very strong, and the Macron dynamic, which dried up her Les Républicains electorate", observes Bruno Cautrès.
Will the in-between rounds prove fatal to the Republican right?
Between those who will call to vote Macron or even rally to him, and others who will favor abstention, the debates promise to be epic.
6/The PS at the bottom of the abyss
Never during this campaign, Anne Hidalgo has failed to break the sound barrier.
The socialist campaign was a long, painful crossing of the desert, during which the mayor of Paris gradually sank into probing limbo.
This Sunday, his result confirms what will remain as one of the Socialist Party's greatest disappointments, whatever one may say.
The candidate must be satisfied with a negligible score, less than 2%.
A result that will inevitably raise the question of the future of this political party.
The end of an era ?
7/ Jadot and Roussel sucked in
The first thought that the time for ecology had arrived.
The second had managed to take the light in this campaign and was seen almost above 5%.
Missed.
Yannick Jadot comes out of this first round below the 5% threshold, very far from the hopes initially defended.
“This is EELV's second best score, behind Noël Mamère in 2002. The party was expecting something completely different.
Yannick Jadot's objective after the primary was to invite himself to the second round, in the hope of winning it.
It is therefore a disappointment for his camp, ”analyzes Simon Persico, teacher-researcher in political science at Pacte and Sciences Po Grenoble.
“Ecology has never been so present in the programs and in the media.
The environment was therefore present, without however structuring the debates”, he continues.
Yannick Jadot's campaign, made more delicate by a narrow victory in the primary, suffered from internal divisions, from a gap between what the candidate intended to embody in the face of the claims of some of his activists.
Fabien Roussel ends up at just over 2%.
Did some of its activists escape to Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the secrecy of the voting booth?
8/The rallying war, the question of tanks
Our projections for the second round of the presidential election give the outgoing president the favorite of the ballot.
But a new phenomenon has revealed itself in this campaign.
Marine Le Pen is less alone.
Her score is better than in 2017 and she has the luxury of having a reservoir of voices.
This trend was confirmed this Sunday evening by the rallying calls made by Éric Zemmour and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.
Opposite, Emmanuel Macron received the explicit support of Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot and Fabien Roussel.
9/Mélenchon champion among young people, Macron among the rich
According to an Ipsos Sopra-Steria survey for Le Parisien, France Télévisions and Radio France, carried out during the three days preceding the first round, Jean-Luc Mélenchon was full of votes among young people.
More than 30% of those under 35 intended to vote for the candidate La France insoumise, who collected a total of around 21% of the vote.
Conversely, the electorate aged at least 60 years announced mainly to focus on Emmanuel Macron.
The candidate president, who finished well ahead with nearly 29% of the vote, was favored by 35% of French people whose household earns more than 3000 euros net monthly.
Logically, Emmanuel Macron is also full of votes among voters who "manage to put a lot of money aside" (42% of them intended to vote for him).
What, in the eyes of his opponents, reinforce the label of "president of the rich" that several of them attach to him.
10/Jean Lassalle, champion of small candidates
He complained about his media treatment, almost threw in the towel in the home stretch.
And yet Jean Lassalle literally explodes his score in the first round of the 2017 presidential election, when he obtained 1.21% of the vote.
This time, Lassalle comes out with more than 3% of the votes, offering himself the luxury of largely exceeding the communist Fabien Roussel as well as the socialist Anne Hidalgo.
At the end of the first round, Jean Lassalle refused to give voting instructions.