Ifop political scientist Paul Cébille analyzes the results of the first round of the presidential election.
Revenge of 2017
The presidential election of 2022 will be that of the “revenge” of 2017. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will again compete for the presidential nomination in the second round of the ballot on April 24th… in a radically different context, however.
Read also: Presidential 2022 live: Macron in the lead, Le Pen qualified, suspense for the second round
In accordance with what the latest Ifop voting intention survey indicated, the French decided today on the “return match” of 2017, placing Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in the lead in the first round with 27 respectively. .6% and 23.4% of the vote. Sanctioning a five-year term marked by multiple social, political and international crises, outgoing President Emmanuel Macron surpassed his 2017 score by managing to climb to the top by gathering three quarters of his 2017 electorate (74%). He will therefore face again in the second round Marine Le Pen, who has achieved the feat – despite the appearance for the first time of a competing offer on his right – of gathering 74% of his electorate in 2017 and being the recourse of the right for this presidential election. Indeed, whether Valérie Pécresse (4.8%) or Eric Zemmour (7%), none managed to exceed the symbolic threshold of 10% of the votes cast.
Read also: Emmanuel Macron (28.3%): “Your trust honors me, obliges me and commits me”
For his third – and final – candidacy, Jean-Luc Mélenchon offers himself for the first time the place of the “third man” with 21.9% of the vote. Taking advantage of a remarkable campaign dynamic, the candidate of France Insoumise embodies the “useful vote” on the left by recovering 66% of his electorate in 2017 and nearly a third of that of Benoit Hamon (30%). Reputed to be voiceless (gathering only 31.4% of the electorate), “the leftists” turned to Jean-Luc Mélenchon to try to exist in the second round, thereby drying up the other candidacies represented by Yannick Jadot (4, 6%), Fabien Roussel (2.3%) and Anne Hidalgo (1.7%).
Read also: Jean-Luc Mélenchon (21.2%): “Not a single voice for Madame Le Pen!”
The other candidates then arrive at a level far below. Nathalie Arthaud (0.6%) and Philippe Poutou (0.7%) once again testify to their presence but with less than 1% of the vote. On the right, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, penalized by the congestion of the electoral offer, obtains only 1.9% of the votes (against 4.7% in 2017) and Jean Lassalle progresses by 2 points in 5 years to reach 3.2%.
The last minute mobilization of the French makes it possible to avoid a historic “extinction of the vote”
The figures for this Sunday, April 10 show strong abstention (25.1%) but which makes it possible to avoid the historic record of 2002. Despite the forecasts made during a campaign marked by the disinterest of one out of two voters (48 %, up 20 points compared to 2017), almost three quarters of voters (74.9%) went to the polls in the first round, i.e. a level of participation significantly lower than in the 2017 election (77.8% ) but more than 3 points higher than the historic low of April 21, 2002 (71.6%). In detail, the categories that mobilized the least during this presidential election are the most traditionally inclined to abstain, namely young people (44% of young people aged 18 to 24 did not go to vote this Sunday, against only 24% among those aged 65 and over) and the most disadvantaged or precarious populations (29% of employees and workers).
The French voted with their wallet and their health, they make them the two main issues of the 2022 presidential campaign
Put in the spotlight by the health crisis and the rise in prices, health (71%, +9 points compared to 2017) and the increase in wages and purchasing power (68%, +8 points) were the two decisive issues in the vote of the French, far ahead of security (60%) and education (59%). Emmanuel Macron’s results in the face of COVID and in the face of the management of price increases will have played a role in the vote of more than one in two voters: 56% for the first and 51% for the second, and for respectively 35% and 38% of them, these assessments will have encouraged them to vote against the outgoing president, without however blocking his way to the second round.