Mathieu Gallard is research director at Ipsos France.
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YOUR COMMUNE - The results of the second round of the presidential election in your area
LE FIGARO. - The second round of the presidential election was marked by record abstention: 28%. What does this depoliticization reveal: muted anger, depression or a form of recklessness?
Matthew Gallard. -
This figure is all the more impressive in that we can add the 6.2% of voters who chose to vote blank or null.
In total, more than a third of the electorate therefore decided not to make a choice during this second round, without even counting the non-registered who, according to a recent parliamentary report, represent 3 to 5 million citizens of voting age.
Obviously, the reasons for this behavior are multiple: some are structural, such as the growing distrust of political elites, the feeling that national public authorities are powerless to influence the country's situation or the change in the relationship to youth politics. generations.
But others are more related to the specific context of this election, and in particular to this duel between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.
In a political landscape now divided into three poles, this second round poster inevitably aroused the rejection of part of the French.
Thus, the main reason given by the abstainers to explain their behavior is the fact that “no candidate corresponds to my ideas” and the rejection of the vote “to block”.
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is particularly the case among abstainers who had voted for left-wing candidates in the first round.
Finally, what this level of abstention translates is therefore undoubtedly above all the feeling of a lack of alternative between two equally rejected candidates, and therefore a deep pessimism about the next five years.
Where is abstention strongest? How do you analyze it?
As in the first round, and as in almost every election, abstention is higher in the younger generations as well as in popular circles.
Among young people, it is the result of a relationship to politics different from older generations: skepticism vis-à-vis a system in which we finally give a blank check to elected officials for several years is progressing, and moreover other modes of action (demonstrations, associative actions, petitions, etc.) are now perceived as as legitimate and effective as voting.
Within the popular categories, there is obviously the feeling that the successive alternations have not had a significant impact on his personal situation and that of those close to him, and then there is also sometimes the feeling of estrangement or even '
To these elements, we must obviously add the political logic specific to this election, with in particular the demobilization of part of the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the second round: compared to the first round, abstention progresses the most there where it obtained its best scores: major cities (Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Nantes, Strasbourg, Grenoble, etc.) and their inner suburbs, as well as certain rural areas in south-eastern France (Larzac, Cévennes, Vivarais, Diois, etc.) .
Emmanuel Macron can be expected to water down his wine in the coming weeks to avoid a rapid rise in opposition.
Mathieu Gallard
Emmanuel Macron was elected by 37.9% of those registered. He is the most poorly elected president of the Fifth Republic after Pompidou in 1969. Can we govern “against” 60% of the French? Is his room for maneuver limited?
We must beware of interpreting the behavior of all the abstainers as an unconditional rejection: some of them were perhaps satisfied with the probable re-election of Emmanuel Macron without particularly wishing to take part in it.
The fact remains that the re-elected President will undoubtedly have to take this particular political situation into account, at least in the short term: the legislative elections are taking place in less than two months, and it is obviously vital for him to obtain a majority in order to set up his program.
However, the French tell us that they mostly want the Head of State to "bring the French together, even if it means postponing certain important but divisive reforms", an opinion which is even shared by nearly one voter from Emmanuel Macron out of two.
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The real question is that of the post-legislative scenario, which remains the most likely at this stage, where Emmanuel Macron would obtain a stable majority.
As in 2017 and as for his predecessors, the institutions of the Fifth Republic would then give him the means to carry out the policy he wishes, despite the particular context of his re-election.
This is all the more true since, unlike the former government parties, the PS and LR, LREM is a very weak party and tightly controlled by the President.
Two elements could then slow down Emmanuel Macron.
First of all, the social resistance that will no doubt manifest itself if Emmanuel Macron decides to move forward with certain divisive measures in his program: the scale of such social movements is very difficult to predict, but one can think that the five-year term that will opens will be restless.
On the other hand, Emmanuel Macron not being able to stand for re-election in 2027, he will undoubtedly face pressure from candidates for his succession within his political family.
For Edouard Philippe, Bruno Le Maire or Gérald Darmanin, it is important that the mandate which opens is reforming without being too stormy.
The political landscape, resulting from the first round, is divided into three poles: social-ecologist, centrist, nationalist. Will the institutional question be at the center of political reflections in the coming years?
It would no doubt be healthy for genuine reflection to begin on the institutional issues during the five-year term, leading to real reforms.
The institutions of the Fifth Republic were set up at a time when the bipolarization between the left and the right was taking place, the center (MRP, CNIP, CD, etc.) being gradually integrated into the right-wing bloc during the 1960s. We are now facing the opposite situation, with a transition to a tripartition of political space that no longer fits into current institutional frameworks.
Our institutions are not representative of the political diversity of the country, and give all powers to the elected President, regardless of the narrowness of his first round electoral base.
Mathieu Gallard
In the past, voters on the radical left were undoubtedly extremely reluctant to vote for the socialist candidate in the second round of an election, but at least they felt some common values with him.
This is no longer the case today between, for example, Mélenchonist voters and Macronist voters, and this leads to a rise in abstention and a growing feeling of no longer being taken into account by a third of the electorate. .
Added to this is the fact that the legislative voting method once again risks greatly underestimating the electoral weight of the Rassemblement National and France Insoumise, which represent nearly one in two voters.
In the end, our institutions are not representative of the political diversity of the country, and give all powers to the elected President,
regardless of the narrowness of its first-round electoral base.
Reforms aiming to create government coalitions based on broader bases (proportional) and to involve voters more regularly and more directly in political decision-making during the quinquennium (referendums, participatory democracy) are therefore necessary.
The question is whether Emmanuel Macron really wants to reform the institutions in a way that would give more weight to Parliament and citizens.
Successive Presidents have talked a lot about this, but they have done little: just remember the number of times the promise to introduce proportional representation has been put away in the boxes during their term of office.
No head of state wants to limit his powers, which is understandable.
But today, the situation is really critical, and on the other hand Emmanuel Macron is in his last term.
This is a chance, because it could push him to go down in history as an important reformer of our institutions without limiting his own prerogatives in the future.