In France, voters will go to the polls again tomorrow for the second round of the presidential election, after a two-week campaign without excitement. Polls before the runoff confirmed the predictions that President Emmanuel Macron is the favourite. The far-right Marine Le Pen, who received 34 percent of the vote in the 2017 presidential elections, is expected to increase this rate by at least 10 points.
The French, who will elect the eighth President of the fifth republic in France, are preparing to go to the polls intensely, or to cast a blank vote, with the disappointment of Macron and Le Pen reaching the finals again.
The voters, tired of the debates in France, which was shaken by the Yellow Vests rebellion movement, the Corona virus pandemic and then the Ukraine war, will determine the winner in the “Macron-Le Pen duel”, which he said he does not want to live again, 80 percent in the interim polls made 2 years ago.
In the first round of the Presidential elections held on April 10, among the 12 candidates, liberal right-wing President Emmanuel Macron received 27.8 percent of the votes, and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen received 23.1 percent, and made it to the second round.
Between the two rounds, “debates on purchasing power, the Ukraine war and Russia, the European Union, climate change, the headscarf, pension law and French institutions reform” came to the fore. During the two-week campaign, Macron was the “republican front against the far right”; Marine Le Pen also used the “All against Macron” strategy.
Le Pen and Macron’s face-to-face discussion on television, which was watched by a relatively low audience, revealed “two different visions of France”. 48.7 million voters, with a candidate “pro-European and will continue their reforms as a continuation of the previous controversial power”; He will choose between the populist candidate who “claims to be the voice of millions whose purchasing power has decreased, who cannot make it to the end of the month, and whose voice cannot be heard”.
“Referendum for the EU and the Republic”
Emmanuel Macron stated that the elections are not only about electing a presidential candidate, but that the second round will be a “referendum of European and republican values against the extreme right”. Macron asked the voters to “form a front against the extreme right” by resorting to the classical method, which has been used as a “guarantee of election” since 2002.
Macron softened his rhetoric in order to appeal to the voters of the radical leftist candidate Jean Luc Melenchon, who received high votes in the first round. He said he could discuss the reform that raises the retirement age to 65. After enacting a harshly criticized law called “Islamist separatism”, which she debated in the country for 2 years, she applauded a young woman who said she was “wearing a headscarf and a feminist” between the two rounds, and winked at the Muslim voters, 69 percent of whom voted for Melenchon.
Seeing that the “republican front against the extreme right” strategy had lost ground in France, Marine Le Pen built her two-week campaign “on the mobilization of her own voter base”. Calculating that a significant portion of Melenchon’s voters will not go to the polls or protest by “voting blank”, Le Pen called the voters to the ballot box to close the gap.
Candidates said their last words yesterday, the country entered the election ban. Polls conducted in the last minutes of the election campaign showed that Macron increased his votes, with the votes from Melenchon, who received 22 percent of the votes in the first round, and from the left voters. Macron wins the second round with 56 percent of the vote, according to a poll conducted by the Ipsos-Sopra research company earlier this week. However, the latest poll announced by the same company yesterday reveals that Macron will win the elections with a wide margin of 15 points. According to the poll, Macron gets 57.5 percent and Le Pen around 42.5 percent.
Protest votes anxiety
The main unknown of the elections in the second round will be the number of turnout. The “third contestant” of the elections will be the number of voters who did not come to the ballot box and cast blank or invalid votes. In the previous presidential elections, 25.4 percent of the voters in the second round did not go to the polls. Polls indicate that this rate will rise even higher tomorrow. Macron is worried that his own electorate will not go to the polls with the Easter holiday, saying “how will he win”. Marine Le Pen, on the other hand, fears that her voters will be offended because the polls show her as the “losing side”. For this reason, the message of both candidates to their voters and undecideds was “Go to the polls, nothing is guaranteed”.
The riddle “Number of attendance”
According to the Ipsos survey, the rate of going to the polls tomorrow is estimated to be between 71 and 75 percent. In the elections held five years ago, this rate was around 74.5 percent. Some of the left voters, caught between the liberal right and the extreme right, will protest the ballot box. Some will support Macron against the far right.
Voters will choose “the best of the worst” according to themselves at the ballot box. In the poll of Ipsos, it was estimated that 41 percent of the radical leftist candidate Melenchon’s votes would go to Macron, 38 percent would abstain, and 21 percent would vote for Le Pen. Of those who voted for Communist candidate Fabien Roussel, 43 percent said they would vote for Macron, 13 percent for Le Pen, and 44 percent said they would abstain.
“Neither malaria nor cholera”
In the elections, the number of French people calling for “blank votes” between the two rounds with the slogans “Neither malaria nor Cholera” or “Neither Macron nor Le Pen” is quite high. Sorbenne University students, when they saw that Macron and Le Pen made it to the second round, right after the first round, they carried out occupation actions in universities. Students especially called on the two leaders not to vote for the two leaders who are weak in environmental policies.
Even if Macron wins the Presidency, he will rule a divided France, with an extreme right that gets close to half the votes, and a third force, the radical left, strengthened. This will affect the results of the parliamentary elections to be held 50 days after the presidential elections.
Mathieu Gallard, General Manager of Ipsos Research Company, emphasizes that three major tendencies emerged in the elections, namely liberal, radical left and extreme right, and that important structural reforms should be made to find a solution to the political tripartite division after tomorrow. In an interview with Le Figaro, Gallard said: “If the president does not want to end his possible second term with the election of the radical right and the decline in democracy, he will have to undertake institutional reforms that rebalance the balance of power between parliament and executive. “We must therefore consider ensuring that it is based on the electoral basis. Also, mechanisms should be considered where citizens can have a direct and regular voice,” he said.