The subject will have haunted the entire campaign.
Both perceptible and for the moment difficult to anticipate with accuracy, the specter of abstention will have forced the candidates and their teams to be cautious in the face of the outcome of the ballot.
To discover
Presidential 2022: find here the result of the second round of the election
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"We feel on the ground that confidence in the candidate
Emmanuel Macron
is increasing
," reported Richard Ferrand on LCI on Friday.
But you have to be focused, mobilized until the last hour to convince as many people as possible.
And the Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie, to add on France 2:
“You need a lot of humility.
Nothing is decided."
To convince, therefore, to encourage voters to return to the ballot box.
“I have been trying to tear the French people away from abstentionism for eight months
,” said Marine Le Pen on CNews / Europe 1.
“If the people vote, the people win
,” hammered the spokesperson for the Rassemblement. national, Jordan Bardella, on RTL.
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In 2017, the face-to-face between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen was far from having mobilized the French.
From 22.23% in the first round, the abstention rate then jumped to 25.44% in the second.
So what to expect this time?
“This second round is likely to resemble that of 2017
, indicates Frédéric Dabi, director general opinion of Ifop.
But also in the second round of 1969 when the communist Jacques Duclos, the first candidate eliminated, refused to choose between Pompidou and Poher.
The former Gaullist Prime Minister had finally been elected while abstention had climbed.
"Everything rests on the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon"
“Everything rests on the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon”
, slice Frédéric Dabi.
Because the voices of the other candidates, with the exception of those of Éric Zemmour, refer
“mostly”
to Emmanuel Macron.
"You must not give a voice to Marine Le Pen"
, launched several times Jean-Luc Mélenchon the evening of his defeat.
To whom, then, will those who, in the first round, have chosen it turn?
According to Bruno Cautrès, researcher at the CNRS and Cevipof, and teacher at Sciences Po, two electoral behaviors are emerging: if one party will be much more likely to abstain or to slip a blank ballot than the center left electorates, the other will choose Emmanuel Macron to avoid favoring Marine Le Pen.
"Everything will depend on the dosage: will the voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon be more likely to abstain or to refer to the president-candidate?"
Asks the political scientist who expects
"a clear increase"
in votes white and null
.
“During the last presidential election, this rate had risen to 11%.
It could, this time, go up to 13% or 14%.”
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Could the “republican dam” advocated by Valérie Pécresse, Yannick Jadot or even Anne Hidalgo then result in the ballot boxes and thwart the forecasts of low participation?
In 2002, the French mobilized and overwhelmingly chose Jacques Chirac over Jean-Marie Le Pen.
But this time, says Frédéric Dabi, there will be no
"excess participation"
between the two rounds.
In addition, adds Bruno Cautrès, Marine Le Pen
“has become a lasting element of our political system”.
“It's the second time she's qualified in the second round;
voters no longer see her as much of a spoiler.”