For the time being, abstention is high, but it has not reached its record level of 2002. At 5 p.m. this Sunday, participation in the first round stood at 65%. A figure down 4.4 points compared to 2017: five years ago, at the same time, the participation was 69.42%. However, it is 6 points higher than in 2002.
The abstention which was announced as important has challenged the international press in recent days. “The latest polls predicted an abstention rate of up to 30%”, bring it back news in Germany, which adds: “A few days before the election, three out of ten French people had still not decided who they were going to vote for. The feeling of allegiance to a party has weakened, partisan voters are less numerous than before.”
The French ballot is closely observed abroad, recalls the media from across the Rhine. “In Brussels and Berlin, we are impatiently awaiting the results. In recent weeks, the campaign has focused on the issue of purchasing power and ways to fight inflation.
To Madrid, The country adds: “Even the sublime blue skies of this Sunday could not prevent the threatening shadow of abstention from hovering over a democratic process marked by a deep disinterest of the voters, caught between the last rebound of the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, against the backdrop of a lackluster electoral campaign.”
The Spanish daily went to Saint-Denis to question a few French people. Their testimony confirms the newspaper’s analysis. Among them, we meet Simon, an activist, who deplores “a strangely dispassionate campaign” and who recognizes that this Sunday, April 10 looks annoyingly like any other on the square in front of the basilica.
Or Sandrine, who is used to voting early in the morning, but who is taking her time this year to think again about who to vote for. And then Sébastien, who lives in the city and has just voted but who is not satisfied with his choice, having felt obliged to vote usefully but not out of conviction.