Until April 10, our reporters and correspondents will go and return to see these French people who have planned to shun the ballot box. From Nice to Saint-Brieuc, they will give them the floor to understand the reasons for their disappointment, their anger and their disinterest.
The first party in France, it is him: that of the abstainers. Apart from the 2019 Europeans (49.88%), the abstention rates under Emmanuel Macron broke records in each intermediate poll: 55.34% in the 2020 municipal elections, 66.68% and 66.72% in the departmental and regional in 2021. Obviously, the health crisis which, for two years, has forced the executive to postpone the voting dates and forced activists and candidates to limit their contact with the population, has had a lot to do with it. But not only … The reasons for these increases in abstention are multiple: loss of confidence in political action, weakening of the major historical parties, disappointment of the “new world” promised in 2017 by the Head of State, fed up with “Useful vote” for some left-wing voters …
According to a BVA poll for RTL published in early December, 70% of the voters questioned declared, at the time, their intention to vote on April 10 and 24. That is to say 3 points less than for the previous presidential election (for a real final participation of 77.8% in the first round). The president elected in 2022 could be, if the trend is confirmed, one of the least well elected in the history of the Fifth Republic. Participation will therefore be an important key to this election. In the same survey, half of potential abstainers explained that they did not wait “Much of this election” and “It will not change anything in their daily life”. Almost 40% respond “that no candidate represents their ideas ”, 34% have “The impression that their vote does not count”, 30% that “games are made”. Then come the lack of interest in politics (28%), the willingness to wait to see the candidates’ proposals (27%) then, finally, that of expressing dissatisfaction (23%).
Understanding this electoral evil
Release therefore chose, for its coverage of the presidential campaign, to publish a series of reports on these abstainers in a dozen places in France. With the bathers of Nice or the associative activists of the Mistral district in Grenoble, with the students of the university restaurant of Saint-Brieuc or the bicycle delivery men of the city center of Montpellier, in particular, our reporters and correspondents in the region will go and return to see these French women and men who are often passionate about politics but do not or no longer vote. To try to understand and bear witness to the underlying reasons for this electoral evil. Also feel what, in the speeches of the various candidates and the campaign facts, could bring them back to the polls or move them away even more.
They are seen by part of the left as an important reservoir of votes. “Abstention is the worst that can happen to us, for example, launched Jean-Luc Mélenchon to his troops in August. Because the polls say, in the clearest way possible: the more people vote, the stronger we are, the less they vote, the stronger Macron and Le Pen are. “ Socialists and environmentalists also target a part of these abstainers: young people. According to BVA, nearly one in ten voters is not registered on the electoral rolls (nearly 4.5 million French people) and, among them, half are under 35 years old. They have until March 4 to fix it.