According to the “Le Match de l’executif” survey for Paris Match, in 2022, only 52% of French people are interested in the presidential election compared to 2017 and its 78%, a drop of 26 points. Interview with Frédéric Dabi, opinion director general of the IFOP.
Paris Match. While the French usually make the presidential election an important deadline (and which they like), they are increasingly abandoning it. Is this disinterest linked to the Covid crisis?
Frederic Dabi. First of all, you should know that interest in a presidential election can soar at any time, even if we are currently in a period of false flat. The Covid has a central role in this lack of interest because it engulfs the debates. If we take, for example, our survey on the topics most discussed by the French before the presidential election, we see that the first six topics relate to the Covid. Our latest poll shows that even if certain political subjects are highlighted, the four most discussed by the population concern the Covid. This has, in fact, an impact on the campaign, on the dynamics and the interest of the public. The French have always voted in the presidential elections, but with the restrictions, the government measures, the gauges and others, we see a clear decline in the interest they had previously for the presidential election. This health crisis prevents candidates and the population from conversing and hinders them from engaging in battle.
Is there not a problem of electoral supply?
The electoral offer plays a role, that’s for sure; there are temporary differences compared to 2017, in particular with the LR primary which saw François Fillon emerge, the socialist primary with Benoît Hamon and, of course, the advent of a new head in the person of Emmanuel Macron . Today, the left has too many candidates (we can speak of “overflow”), but what strikes the most is the number of abstainers, still on the rise. In addition, the electoral offer is struggling to interest because it looks a lot like that of 2017, despite the UFO Éric Zemmour and the candidacy of Valérie Pécresse. Interest is, however, less strong for this presidential campaign because it is late. That said, the fact that Emmanuel Macron is still not campaigning can actually play into this disinterest.
Does an election with an outgoing president interest the population less in general?
It depends on several factors. In 1981, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing stood for re-election, but he had François Mitterrand in front of him, who arrived with a program of rupture, which greatly interested people, not to mention the very present antigiscardism within the population. . In 2012, we saw an assumed antisarkozysm where the population was divided into “for” or “against” and everything revolved around that. The debate in the second round is a striking example of this. In 2017, the election of Emmanuel Macron was possible in part because he embodied a new face, and because the French did not have to do, as five years earlier, an assessment of the outgoing president during the campaign. But the biggest problem today is not so much the outgoing president as the impossibility of bringing out a central theme and a complete offer. It is a late campaign with candidates who are struggling to establish a real rhythm. This election lacks the ferment that electrifies the campaign.
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