Like five years ago, Marine Le Pen is leading the race in Corsica. This time, his domination is even without appeal. The candidate indeed arrived well ahead of Sunday in the first round of the presidential election marked on the island, where the independence parties had called for a boycott of the election, by a strong abstention. In addition, Jean Lassalle also achieved a good score. The candidate obtained 10.41% of the votes cast on the island, almost 7 points more than his national score (3%).
With 28.58%, Marine Le Pen is ahead of Emmanuel Macron by more than 10 points (18.11%) followed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France insoumise (13.37%) and Eric Zemmour (12.80 %). The National Rally candidate clearly leads the vote in the two largest Corsican cities, with 30.56% of the vote in Ajaccio and 29.30% in Bastia against 18.99% and 17.51% respectively for Emmanuel Macron. Already in 2017, Marine Le Pen had come out on top on this island of 340,000 inhabitants with 27.88% of the votes cast, ahead of François Fillon (25.52%) and nearly 10 points ahead of Emmanuel Macron (18.48%).
The separatist boycott
The abstention rate, which has increased throughout France compared to the last presidential election, is also on the rise in Corsica, reaching 37.24%, compared to around 32% in the first round in 2017. An increase which could be explained by the call for a boycott of the election launched by the two separatist parties, Core in Fronte and Corsica Libera, however in the minority in the Assembly of Corsica.
Faced with these results, the leader of the right-wing opposition in the Assembly of Corsica and mayor (Horizons / DVD) of Ajaccio, Laurent Marcangeli, indicated that he had voted Emmanuel Macron in the first round and intended to do so also in the second, “so that Mrs. Le Pen is not President of the Republic”. The autonomist president of the executive council of Corsica, Gilles Simeoni, who voted in Bastia, did not speak on Sunday evening.
In addition, in southern Corsica, stencils of the face of Yvan Colonna, whose fatal attack in prison on March 2 sparked weeks protests punctuated by violence. In Ajaccio, a number of electoral panels were covered with posters, signed Corsica Libera, with the effigy of Yvan Colonna with the mention “Statu Francese Assassinu” (French State assassin).