Ifop political scientist Paul Cébille draws lessons from the second round of the 2022 presidential election.
Carried out on the day of the vote with a sample of 4827 people registered on the electoral lists, this study carried out by Ifop and Fiducial for TF1, LCI Paris Match and Sud Radio offers a valuable analysis of the results of this second round and its consequences.
The strongest abstention for almost two generations, the presidential election of 2022 confirms the installation of a deep democratic malaise.
More than a quarter of the electorate (28.5%) abstained from voting during this second round of the presidential election, a historic rate for the queen election of French political life which had no not observed since 1969 (31.1%). With 46% abstaining in the second round, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s first-round electorate abstained the most, ahead of that of Yannick Jadot (31%) and that of Valérie Pécresse (23%).
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A reason deemed decisive by 55% of the abstainers questioned, the absence of a candidate defending their ideas topped the justifications for this choice, ahead of the “ni-ni” between the two candidates (49%), the desire to express dissatisfaction with regard to Emmanuel Macron (46%) and the action of the outgoing president (47%)… now largely re-elected. All these reasons given give a very “political” tinge to abstention, far from the idea of a “vanity” of the vote (considered decisive by 40% of abstainers) yet significant in the first round and during the last elections, a given to keep in mind for the next five years.
Read also: At the Champ-de-Mars, supporters and relatives of Emmanuel Macron celebrate his re-election
The results with the Afp
Same players are still playing: at the end of the 2017 return match, Emmanuel Macron is the first president re-elected outside cohabitation under the Fifth Republic, with an extreme right stronger than ever.
After a campaign largely prevented before the first round and a boost given between the two rounds, Emmanuel Macron won the presidential election of 2022 with around 58% of the vote, sixteen points ahead of his rival, Marine Le Pen (42%). Net, this victory is however less brilliant than that of 2017, where the strong man of En Marche was ahead of the candidate of the National Rally by 32 points. Marine Le Pen was able this time to count on the unprecedented pool of votes made up of the electorate of Éric Zemmour, who voted 78% for his candidacy, but also on a fraction of the supporters of Valérie Pécresse (18%). and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (13%), despite the latter’s explicit instructions.
The attitude of La France Insoumise voters, at the heart of attention between the two rounds, ultimately resulted in a favorable report, although shared with the outgoing president: 42% of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s voters in the first turn voted for Emmanuel Macron, when 45% “got out of the game” by opting for the blank vote, zero, or abstention. If they were joined in this by 29% of Jadot voters and 30% of those of Pécresse, it is clear that the support of these two candidates, above all to block, mainly voted Emmanuel Macron (respectively 64% and 52%).
Marker of the profound change in the meaning of the vote, the meaning given to the vote by the French differs widely between 2017 and 2022. From a majority vote of rejection of Marine Le Pen in 2017 (57%), the vote Emmanuel Macron turned into a vote of support for the personality of the outgoing president, for 57% of his voters. Conversely, Marine Le Pen has become for a growing part of her electorate (42%, an increase of 6 points) a bulwark against the re-election of Emmanuel Macron.
Unlike 2017, the debate between two rounds will not have played a decisive role in the election. Barely more than one in ten voters (14%) claim to have changed their mind following this debate, compared to 27% in 2017, in a very different context given that the “changers” are balanced in favor of Marine Le Pen (4%), white vote (4%), Emmanuel Macron (3%) and abstention (3%). In 2017, 10% of voters had changed their vote in favor of Emmanuel Macron after the decried performance of the candidate of the National Rally.
The Le Pen vote: France concerned… about the loss of purchasing power and immigration
As in the first round, health played a “decisive” role in the vote for 68% of voters, whether for the electorate of Emmanuel Macron (67%) or that of Marine Le Pen (66%). Where the Lepenist vote takes on a particular hue is to be found in the issues linked to the increase in wages and purchasing power (78% of them consider it decisive against 56% of the Macron electorate), the evolution of prices fuels and energy (71% against 41%) and especially around the fundamental themes of the “national” vote, namely security (81% against 45%) and above all the fight against illegal immigration (75% against 26%). A theme raised during the debate between the two rounds, the protection of the environment is cited by only 43% of respondents as having been “decisive” (30% for Le Pen voters against 50% for those of Emanuel Macron).
Read also: Marine Le Pen: “I will continue my commitment to France and the French people”
An election for nothing? The French are still waiting for profound changes for the next five years, whether in the composition of the future majority or in the reforms to be implemented.
Despite the large re-election of Emmanuel Macron, a clear majority of French people expect profound changes in the composition of the government team, first and foremost the Prime Minister: 71% of those questioned do not want Emmanuel Macron to retain Jean Castex in this position, whether it is the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon (82%), Marine Le Pen (82%) and even nearly one in two voters of Emmanuel Macron in the first round (48%).
This change of team, the French also express it in the detail of the government composition where Edouard Philippe floats in the good graces of the French (48% wishing to see him be part of the future government against 37% opposing it), far ahead of Christine Lagarde (39%) and Bruno Le Maire (38%). Even the figures of the past five-year term are rejected by a majority of registered voters such as Jean-Michel Blanquer (57%), Gérald Darmanin (51%), Olivier Véran (48%) or even Gabriel Attal (45%).
Emblematic reform of the program of the president-elect and eminently divisive political marker, the launch in the first weeks of the five-year pension reform is rejected by 55% of registered voters, including 77% of the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 61 % of Marine Le Pen voters against only 27% of Emmanuel Macron’s electorate and 36% of Valérie Pécresse’s.