VSwas a few months ago. In a Parisian lunch, we wondered about everyone’s choices for the upcoming election. “I will vote Macron”, said a young cultural producer before recovering. “Oops, I said it… It’s the first time I’ve said it in public. » For years, polling institutes have wondered how to correct the raw results collected for the far right.
In 2022, confessing the choice of a far-right ballot seemed easier than confessing a Macron vote in the first round.
What was the share of National Rally voters who dared not confess their voting intentions to pollsters? This is why the supporters of the far-right candidate Eric Zemmour were convinced, before the first round of the 2022 presidential election, that we should expect results superior to the polls, inflated by a supposed “hidden vote”.
In reality, we have rather been confronted, for several years, with a problem of overestimation of the votes in favor of the extreme right, with an electorate that is too eager to be heard to hide its choice (especially when faced with a computer, since surveys are conducted online).
No offense to Eric Zemmour, still looking for his hidden vote, the results of this election suggest that, if there was an unacknowledged vote this year, it was rather that in favor of the outgoing president: in 2022, confess choosing a far-right ballot seemed easier than confessing a Macron vote in the first round.
How do we recognize them?
On April 10, some made believe, when leaving for the polling station, that they did not yet know for whom they would vote. Or they said it while laughing, making tons of it so that their interlocutors did not know if they were joking or not. Their fear: to suggest that they despise the poor by admitting a macronist vote. They went to vote very early.
In the second round, they were no longer embarrassed to announce their choice out loud. When the results were announced, they nevertheless refrained from jumping for joy in public. On the night of the results, they felt like the party had been robbed. From July, they will say they can’t quite remember who they voted for in the first round.
how they talk
“I will vote Macron to vote useful. » “I didn’t want him to finish second in the first lap. » “If it hadn’t been for the war…” “I wanted Jadot and then at the last moment…” “I voted for Macron because…” “I voted for Macron but…” “When you are surrounded by old friends who know that you have always voted PS, you are a little embarrassed at the corners…” “When people told me that they would have a hard time voting Macron in the second round, I tried to make them believe that I understood them. » “France has become the most attractive country in the world and nobody says it! » “If you voted Mélenchon in the first round and Macron in the second, you are doing socially with all the honors, while Mélenchon has said things worse than “I cross the street and I find you [du travail]”…” “I was the only one to vote Macron at a dinner of 15 people, I eluded…” “I can’t understand the hatred he can arouse…”
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