Macron shunned by young people. Even though he is only 44 years old and took office in 2017 as the youngest president in contemporary French history, Emmanuel Macron has not had a lot of voices among young people.
Between 34.8% and 36% of 18-24 year olds preferred to vote for the radical left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, while only 21% to 24.3% chose Mr. Macron, according to Harris polls Interactive.
And the situation is worse for the president-candidate among 25-34 year olds with a score of 19.3% to 21%, placing him behind Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“It’s a generational phenomenon”, explained the president of the group La République en Marche at the National Assembly, Christophe Castaner, on the television channel BFM-TV. He also added that he hopes young people are “engaged” with environmental issues.
A fragmented geography. The first presidential round reveals a completely divided map of France. Marine Le Pen is in the lead in the industrial North and on the Mediterranean coast.
Conversely, Emmanuel Macron came out on top in the West and East, as well as in central France.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon meanwhile finished first in certain districts of Paris, major cities such as Lille (North), Strasbourg (East), Nantes or Rennes (West), certain popular suburbs and in overseas territories.
Missed chance for the left. Mr. Mélenchon finished just behind Marine Le Pen, with a difference of only 1.2 points.
Within a split left, the socialist Anne Hidalgo, the green Yannick Jadot and the communist Fabien Roussel each won less than 5% of the vote.
If their votes had been transferred to Mr. Mélenchon, the radical left candidate could have finished in the second round, in place of Marine Le Pen.
“They did not have the sense of their duty, to fully understand that, when one is a candidate for a presidential election, one is at the service of this history. It is not the story that is at the service of your little ego,” lambasted the former candidate of the Socialist Party Ségolène Royal on BFM-TV.
The disaster on the right. The formation of the traditional right gave several presidents to France, including Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac. This camp, under various names, dominated French politics for many years, before finding itself torn between Emmanuel Macron and the far right.
On Sunday, its candidate, Valérie Pécresse, collected only 4.8% of the vote. Nicolas Sarkozy had refused to support it.
To top it off, the party is now in the grip of a financial crisis, and Mme Pécresse called on his supporters to help the party. “The survival of Republicans is at stake, and beyond that, the survival of the Republican right,” she warned.
The greens in the shade. In neighboring Germany, the Greens are members of the government and have long played a central role in national politics. Some of their members even hold key ministries, such as Foreign Affairs and the Economy.
In France, the greens had managed to win major cities in municipal elections such as Bordeaux, Lyon and Grenoble. But they never made it to the national level.
Their candidate, Yannick Jadot, also failed to cross the 5% of the vote mark, and the party is now also mired in a financial crisis. “Ecology will be absent from the second round”, lamented Yannick Jadot after the announcement of the results.