France had a political weekend worthy of the name. Almost all the candidates were on deck yesterday, spring Sunday. In his editorial, Le Figaro welcomes “the vitality of democracy: While a strong abstention could mark the first round of the presidential election in 13 days, no doubt they wanted to make the polls lie… and show, from the Trocadero in Paris, to the Prado beach in Marseilles, that they attract crowds, unleash applause and still arouse the hope of other tomorrows. »
The newspaper that rejoices, “After months of trying campaigning and slumps for each of the contenders, to see this determination to want to convince…”
Last straight line so, before the first lap, “ while that in opinion polls the gap is narrowing between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, that Valérie Pécresse and Éric Zemmour are unable to climb the slope, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon, he is experiencing a small dynamic ”.
Effervescence of political meetings and risk of abstention
Release asks French people who have chosen not or no longer to put a ballot in the ballot box… “The objective: to understand the reasons for an announced demobilization », predicts the newspaper. According to a recent poll, one voter in three does not intend to vote in two weeks.
Release takes us for example to Oyonnax to meet Mikaël “There isn’t one that interests us, they’re useless, don’t do anything, says the young man. I voted Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande, Emmanuel Macron, and what has changed? he asks himself.
In Nice this time, Release introduces us to Fabien who has already voted in his life, but who no longer remembers his last passage in the voting booth: “I’m not going to vote. Not voting is already an answer. I hope the abstention party will do 100%. Our power is there.
There are also those who consider that the election is a foregone conclusion, like Éric, 57, near Bordeaux :tso disappointed by Mitterrand’s left, he no longer votes. “It’s all for nothing. We already know that Emmanuel Macron will win. If he is re-elected, it will be terrible, he predicts, we have already seen him work with the yellow vests. »
A result that seems known in advance is less motivating
This is the opinion of Bruno Cautrès, of the political research center of Sciences-Po. The researcher, in Releaseestimate that “The only uncertainty of this election seems to be: against whom will Emmanuel Macron be in the second round? or against whom will he win? »
Bruno Cautrès who assures all the same that this expected abstention results from classic springs. ” It is the popular categories, the youngest, the most precarious, the furthest from employment who will not vote. There are therefore sociological reasons for this abstention. But the particular context of the ballot means that other factors play on the expected low turnout: the war in Ukraine which eclipses the debates and the Covid epidemic still there. »
Artists who refuse to commit
“These artists who flee the countryside”, launch in one the Parisian. Contrary to what may have happened in previous elections, few personalities from music, cinema or the stage have officially given their support to the candidates in the campaign. The actress and director Agnès Jaoui speaks in the columns of the daily : “The electoral campaign is particularly deleterious. There is a rise in intolerance and a race for the most racist to which it was important to react collectively (a concert to celebrate La France enchantée and organized this evening in Paris). But Agnès Jaoui continues: position themselves politically, I will no longer do that. I had done it for Lionel Jospin, when he had little chance of being elected. And that is more harmful than productive.”
The actor and director Philippe Lellouche does not mince his words: “Like any citizen, it may have touched me, but the difficulty is the stupidity of social networks. To take a position is to expose oneself to a “tarp” in order”.