participation at noon is 25%, three points less than in 2017

The 25.48% of French voters They already went to the polls this Sunday before twelve noon in the first round of the presidential elections, as reported by the Ministry of the Interior. This represents a decrease in three points of participation compared to the same time in the first round of 2017 (28.54%), the previous elections for the head of state. After some municipal ones in 2020 and some regional ones last year marked by a very low turnout, abstention is one of the factors to take into account in these presidential elections.

The election of the head of state monopolizes political life in France, where historically there was a massive vote in these elections. But after the war in ukraine eclipsed the campaign in the media and that there have been no television debates, there is fear that in these presidential elections the abstention record of the first round of 2002, of 29%. However, at least at noon, participation is higher than twenty years ago, 21.39%. More than 48 million voters are called to the polls in France, where polling stations open at eight in the morning and will close between seven and eight in the evening.

The socialist Anne Hidalgo was the first of the candidates to vote in a polling station in Paris, then she was followed, among others, by the far-right Marine Le Pen, the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the president Emmanuel Macron, who did it after noon in the seaside resort of Touquet, in the north of French territory. None of them made statements, since the candidates must respect the silence imposed by the electoral law until eight in the afternoon, when the preliminary results will be announced.

Surely, those presidential candidates who follow participation more closely are Le Pen and Mélenchon (ecosocialist), the second and third in the polls. In principle, both depend on the young and popular electorate, more prone to not going to vote, unlike Macron, the favorite in the elections, but who has been losing his advantage.

Since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958, of the ten presidential elections with universal suffrage direct participation in nine of them exceeded 75% in the first round, and in five of them, 80%. But in the last decade French interest in representative politics has deteriorated. “What seems most significant to me is that abstention continues to increase according to social class, with the disparities between the levels of participation between the middle and upper classes and the modest classes growing more and more. We are approaching a situation similar to that of the United States & rdquor ;, Patrick Lehingue, professor at the University of Picardy (north) and specialist on this issue, explains to El Periódico.