For the third time in the past five presidential elections, millions of French citizens are preparing to cast their ballots not in favour of a candidate but to keep another one out of power. So far, the anti-Le Pen vote has resulted in crushing defeats for the far right – but at the cost of rising abstention, anger and resentment.
President Emmanuel Macron will again face Marine Le Pen in a presidential run-off next Sunday, five years after he crushed the far-right candidate in a lopsided contest. Polls are pointing to a much closer race this year amid widespread dismay at a rematch voters have long said they didn’t want.
The second round of France’s marquee election is supposed to mark the apex of French democratic life – the moment when a majority of the people rally behind a vision, a platform, a man (we’re yet to have a woman). Midway through this year’s two-round contest, however, all the signs point to an increasingly unhappy democracy, even by the low standards of a famously morose and rebellious nation.
Pollsters have flagged the prospect of record abstention in the April 24 run-off, following a botched campaign and five turbulent years marked by violent protests and Covid lockdowns. Many voters say they feel arm-twisted into choosing “the lesser of two evils”, and students have taken to occupying university campuses in protest at the outcome of the election’s first round.
The widespread malaise “is not good for turnout and it’s not good for democracy”, said Tristan Haute, a political analyst at the University of Lille, whose research focuses on voter habits. “We’re likely to see a repeat of what happened in 2017, when turnout decreased in the second round and voters cast…
Source : france24
