28% of French people did not vote in the second round on April 24. This is one of the highest abstention rates in the Fifth Republic for a presidential election. But has France really become a bad student?
If we compare the results with the other countries of the European Union, France is actually about average. The two rounds combined, 72.84% of French people went to vote. This participation rate is similar to that of the last Italian general elections, where 72.84% of the population turned out to elect the deputies and senators.
Overall, throughout Western Europe, more than one out of two voters continues to vote in the country’s most important elections (the presidential one for France, the federal ones for Germany, etc.).
Compulsory voting in Belgium
The highest participation rate is achieved in Belgium. More than 9 out of 10 Belgians went to the polls in the 2019 federal elections, it should be noted that in this country, voting is compulsory. Abstainers incur a fine, as in Luxembourg, where the turnout also reached 89.61% in the 2018 legislative elections. Voting is also compulsory in Greece, Denmark, Liechtenstein and Cyprus.
In third and fourth position, we find Sweden (87.18% participation in the 2018 legislative elections) and Malta (85.73% in the 2022 general elections).
Eastern Europe is more abstentionist. Only a third of Romanians (31.95%) went to vote in the 2020 legislative elections. In Bulgaria, the participation rate in the last primordial ballot was 38.43%, and 47.55% in Lithuania. The voting tradition is much less culturally anchored in these countries that emerged from the fall of the USSR, or were influenced for several years by the USSR.