6:12 p.m .: A summer of records
The abstention estimates therefore vary between 66.5% and 68.6% depending on the institute, so it now seems certain that we will be well above, probably ten points above the previous record for an election. : 57.2% during the 2004 Europeans.
If we widen it a little, the absolute record of abstention in the entire history of France (let’s drop the big words when not necessary) is held by a referendum of 2000 for the reduction of the presidential mandate from seven to five years. On September 24, 2000, 69.2% of those registered had not bothered to vote. In 1988, during the referendum on the Matignon agreements on New Caledonia, 63.1% abstention was recorded. We should therefore be between these two figures tonight. We can speak of an electoral shipwreck of very, very large magnitude.