Electoral signs for the regional elections in Nantes. – LOIC VENANCE / AFP
More than 45 million voters are called to the polls on Sunday, most for two elections at the same time, the regional and the departmental. How many will actually respond to this call? Observers are not very optimistic. Any pollster will tell you: measuring voter turnout is a difficult exercise. Viavoice for BFMTV risked it: there could be between 36 and 41% participation. It is very little.
The campaign of the first round which is coming to an end simply did not interest the population. According to Paul Cébille, political analysis at Ifop interviewed by 20 minutes, the interest of voters in the regional ballot would still be below that measured for the Europeans of 2019 (39%) and the municipal ones of last year (41%). For comparison, for the 2017 presidential election interest was 71%. Be careful all the same: for example, we had been surprised by a last-minute mobilization for the Europeans.
Head to other concerns
The French have their heads elsewhere. “What concerns them today is of course the pandemic, even if it is on the decline, but also insecurity and purchasing power. Not really the skills of the regions ”, notes to 20 minutes Mathieu Gallard, study director at Ipsos. Regions whose skills we have trouble grasping are old, but since the 2015 redistribution, we no longer even see the borders. Added to this is a more structural abstention from people who consider that elected officials do not care about them. “The majority-oriented election does not mobilize either, because if you lose, you know that your elected officials will have no power anyway”, also thinks Paul Cébille.
In regional elections, whether there is a weak or a strong abstention, it does not change much on the conduct of the ballot. To qualify for the second round, for example, you have to get at least 10% of the vote. In the departmental, on the other hand, if we are not in the first two, it is necessary to bring together at least 12.5% of those registered, that is to say of all the people on the electoral list of the canton, that they voted or not. In short: in a canton with 50% of abstention, it will take 25% of the votes to pass, not easy.
Not really a camp more mobilized than another
Last year, during exceptional municipal elections in the midst of a pandemic, abstention generally affected all categories, fairly indiscriminately. This time we are back to the classic: “The more you are socially integrated, the more you vote,” explains Mathieu Gallard. Thus the old vote more than the young and the executives vote more than the popular categories. Married people (or couples, let’s be modern) vote more than single people. “On a mobilizing election like the presidential one there is not necessarily a big difference, but on a less mobilizing poll there can be big differences”, adds the pollster from Ipsos.
On the subject of the electorates, it is difficult to see one camp really more mobilized than another. “On the other hand, we see a lot of hesitation in the electorates of the left and LREM, especially in regions where there is a choice, such as Île-de-France or Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes”, describes Mathieu Gallard. On the Ifop side, Paul Cébille even goes so far as to say that, faced with the multiplication of the lists, some voters could decide not to choose and to abstain. The electorate of the RN is him “almost captive, he is sure of his choice, notes the pollster. He still has to go and vote. “
” Good excuse “
The stake for each party, and it does not date from this year, is to mobilize its own. And as abstention increases, that may be enough to win an election or make a difference. However, “the electoral exercise becomes more complicated if it is more a question of mobilizing than of convincing or debating”, thinks Paul Cébille. Massive abstentions in all elections except the presidential one is perhaps the new normal in French political life. Last year in front of 55% (in the first round) and 58% (in the second round) of abstention from municipal elections, we blamed the pandemic context. This year these figures could be exceeded without the pandemic being listed among the reasons for disaffection.
The health crisis was perhaps a “good excuse” for voters: “It is young people who cited the pandemic the most as a reason for abstaining. Which may seem surprising when they are rather the people least affected by Covid-19 ”, analyzes Paul Cébille. A “good excuse” also for the political class and the media: “If we take things over the long term, the decline in participation in municipal elections was not very surprising, recalls Mathieu Gallard. The level has arguably been amplified by the pandemic, but the trend has been there for a long time. “The strong abstention of Sunday, like that of last year, like that of the legislative elections of 2017 … it will be necessary to take it for what it is,” a new index of the distance of the citizens vis-à-vis the political life, ”concludes Mathieu Gallard.