Anne Hidalgo, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Yannick Jadot promise, in the event of a presidential victory, to put it in place. The Republicans and Marine Le Pen are hostile to it. As for Emmanuel Macron, he has not yet expressed a position but several of his supporters in Parliament or in the government, such as Clément Beaune, Secretary of State for European Affairs, say they are in favor. Four months before the presidential election, lowering the vote to 16 is back in the public debate. “This is a subject on which there is a fairly clear left / right divide,” notes political scientist Anne Muxel.
1 Over 1.5 million potential voters
In 1965, the date of the first presidential election by direct suffrage, you had to be 21 years old to vote. In 1974, this threshold was lowered to 18 years. Should we go to 16? This expansion would affect, according to INSEE data, around 1.6 million people.
François Jolivet, LREM deputy for Indre, thinks so and recently tabled a bill to allow it. A symbolic approach, because the term of office is coming to an end, without hope of adoption in the short term, therefore, but it is intended according to its author to reopen the debate before the presidential election. Called “confidence in young people”, this proposal articulated three developments: right to vote at 16, driving license at 16, but also lowering of the criminal majority to 16 years. “Our idea is to better take into account 16-18 year olds, by granting them both new rights and duties” explains, joined by Sud Ouest, François Jolivet.
Regarding voting, he explains: “Basically, being 16 in 2021 is not like being 16 in 1970. Society has changed a lot. Young people on the Internet are subject to a constant flow of information, and a lot of fake news too. When I speak with them in my constituency, they often tell me that they would like to be able to express themselves more on ecology, the reform of the bac, Parcoursup… They are concerned by many public policies without being able to give their opinion “
2 A lever against abstention?
Supporters of voting at 16 believe that it can be a lever to reconnect young people to electoral participation. 18-24 year olds are abstaining more and more massively, more than other segments of the population: 87% of them did not vote in the first round of regional elections last year. “Political science studies show that the earlier one enters the electoral participation process, the more one continues to vote during his adult life” underlines Anne Muxel.
“Allowing 16-year-olds to vote also means integrating them into the public debate, developing arguments to convince them on a particular issue, and ensuring that they are better informed, taking them out of the sole source of social networks ”notes François Jolivet. Sociologist Olivier Galland, author of numerous books on youth, is skeptical. “I’m not sure it can bring young people back into politics. There is a very strong partisan disaffiliation: a large part of 18-24 year olds say they do not recognize themselves in a party or in the left / right divide. They get involved in other ways, in other forms, but keep more and more distant from parties and electoral meetings ”.
Opponents of voting at 16 believe that at this age, one is not sufficiently informed and autonomous, too easily influenced. They also consider it inconsistent to dissociate the majority to vote from the civilian majority, set at 18 years.
3 Possible in Austria, Argentina, Scotland
According to a Council of Europe report from 2015, people vote from the age of 18 in 85% of countries. Voting is possible from the age of 16 in a handful of states, in South America – Argentina, Brazil – and here and there in Europe.
In 2007, Austria was the first country on the continent to lower the voting age in this way. Malta has followed the same path. Elsewhere in Europe, 16-17 year olds can vote, but only in certain ballots. In Scotland and Wales, only local elections are concerned. In Germany too, it is allowed to vote at 16 years old only for regional elections in certain “Länder”.
“The participation of 16-17 year olds is higher than that of other older first-time voters,” writes the Council of Europe in this report.