PARIS (awp/afp) – Abstention should reach 28% in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday, i.e. 2.5 points more than in 2017 (25.44%), according to converging estimates from four institutes of poll, but without reaching the 1969 record (31.3%).
According to Ipsos Sopra-Steria, Ifop, Harris interactive and Elabe, the level of abstention would thus be 28%, up 1.7 points compared to the first round (26.31%), which had already been marked by a weak participation, while Opinionway anticipates for its part 27.8%.
Never has such strong abstention been recorded in a second round of a presidential election, with the exception of the record of 1969, when the voters on the left had, at the call of the communist candidate eliminated in the 1st round, massively refused to choose between “white bonnet and white bonnet” (Georges Pompidou and Alain Poher).
And it is only the 3rd time, after 1969 and 2017, that abstention has increased between two presidential rounds, while the rule until then was rather electoral remobilization for the decisive round.
As in 2017, millions of French people therefore refused to decide between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. It will also be necessary to closely monitor the blank and invalid ballots, which had then reached a record: more than 3 million blank ballots and one million invalid ballots in the 2nd round of 2017.
el/cs/dch