The first round was not a democratic “accident”.
Abstention is expected to reach an even higher level this Sunday, in the second round of legislative elections.
Only 46% of voters registered on the electoral lists will have gone to the polls at 8 p.m., according to initial estimates by Ipsos and Ifop.
This would be 1.5 points less than last Sunday (47.5%).
Abstention would therefore reach 54%.
Turnout is however higher than that in the second round of legislative elections five years ago (42.6%).
But it remains lower than in all previous elections (55.4% in 2012, 60% in 2007, 60.3% in 2002, etc.).
The intermediate score announced at noon already foreshadowed the final situation.
As in each of the previous elections, the young and the most precarious will certainly be the most abstaining.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon had tried to mobilize the youth, who voted massively in favor of the candidates of the New People's Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), during the interval between the two rounds.
“They would still have to mind their own business a bit.
It is not worth coming to complain about Parcoursup, if afterwards it is not to vote for those who want to abolish it, ”he had dropped on France Monday June 13.
But the real roots and causes of abstention seem deeper.
Next elections in 2024
Political scientists always cite the same factors: disenchantment with the political class, feeling that MPs will be powerless, lack of a very mobilizing campaign, etc.
“We have both the effect of a fairly sluggish legislative campaign, with no real strong marker apart from the union of the left and the cleavage between Mélenchon and Macron, and the fact that most voters believe that the National Assembly does not necessarily have a lot of power against the President of the Republic”, developed at the end of the first round Luc Rouban, director of research at CNRS and Cevipof.
Read alsoRecord abstention in the legislative elections: should we blame the millions of French people who did not go to vote?
Will this trend continue?
It will take two years to find out.
The next time the French will be called to the polls (apart from a possible referendum), it will be in 2024, for the European elections.
In 2019, one in two voters voted.
