Staggered holidays, explosion in the number of proxies, etc. Voters are expected to mobilize much more for the legislative elections on June 30 and July 7 than in 2022 or the European elections, but it is difficult to predict who this resurgence will benefit. “We expect over-mobilization” for this election, Benjamin Morel, lecturer in public law at Paris II University, told AFP.
The polls anticipate an increase in participation compared to the last legislative elections: 66% according to an Ifop survey on Wednesday, against 47.8% in 2022. A notable inflection, while the lack of interest in the first round of these elections has been constant since 1993, after a peak in 1978 (82.8%).
Another indicator is that the number of proxies has jumped compared to the last legislative elections. Nearly 1.38 million had been established as of June 23, seven days before the first round, according to the Ministry of the Interior. This is six times more than at the same deadline in 2022.
Even more telling, while the second round will take place on the first weekend of the school holidays, almost one in ten French people (9%) have changed the date of their departure to go vote, according to an Ifop survey for Roole published on Wednesday. The phenomenon is even more marked among young people (the age group usually the most abstentionist), 19% of 18-24 year olds postponing their vacations, and among left-wing sympathizers (16%).
“It’s unprecedented, there is real popular momentum”
“This is unprecedented, there is a real popular momentum,” confirmed to AFP the national secretary of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier. “We have 500 more members in one week among the Greens, 10,000 people who came to support us, tens of thousands of euros in donations.”
However, pollsters, faced with the deep complexity of this campaign, recognize that it is difficult to imagine what the hemicycle of the National Assembly will look like after July 7. This time, the legislative elections will not just be “the registration chamber for the presidential election” which they have followed by a few weeks since 2002, believes Christelle Craplet, director of BVA Opinion.