The French voted on Sunday to elect their next president and choose, as in 2017, between Emmanuel Macron, outgoing president given favorite, and Marine Le Pen, far-right leader who has never seemed so close to the gates of power.
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The turnout at 10:00 GMT was 26.41%, almost two points less than at the same time during the previous presidential election in 2017, on the occasion of the same duel between Mr. Macron and Mrs. Le Pen, said announced the Ministry of the Interior.
This figure also marks a decline compared to the second round of voting in 2012 (30.66%) and 2007 (34.11%), and is close to that of 2002 (26.19%), when the far-right candidate Jean -Marie Le Pen faced Jacques Chirac (right). Participation, on the other hand, is slightly up compared to the first round two weeks ago (25.48%).
Polling stations – 48.7 million voters are called to the polls – opened and must close at 5:00 p.m. GMT and at 6:00 p.m. GMT in major cities.
The French are faced with a historic choice: reappoint the outgoing president or elect a woman, which would be a first, and thus propel the far right to the Elysée for an explosion that would resonate well beyond French borders, comparable to Brexit Britain and the election of Donald Trump in the United States in 2016.
A re-election of Emmanuel Macron, 44, would represent continuity, even if the candidate president has promised to renew himself in depth, ensuring that he wants to place ecology at the heart of his second – and last – mandate.
Mr. Macron would then be the first French president to be re-elected for a second term in 20 years, since Jacques Chirac in 2002.
The arrival of Marine Le Pen, 53, at the helm of a nuclear power, endowed with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and driving force of the European Union, would be an earthquake, of a magnitude all the higher in that it would take place in the heavy context of a war at the gates of Europe.
“Avoid a civil war”
In front of a school in Rennes (west), Bernard Maugier, a 76-year-old retiree and living in a sensitive area of the city, says he voted “to avoid a civil war”. “Must not be the wrong person”, he loose, saying he is “worried” by the result of this election.
Pierre Charollais, 67, retired, believes that “there is a special situation” in the context of the war in Ukraine and the French presidency of the European Union. “You have to vote responsibly (…) You need someone who knows how to manage this situation, who can make important decisions”. “Between the plague and cholera, you have to make the right choice,” he says.
The latest polls published Friday evening, before the entry into force of the electoral reserve period, give Emmanuel Macron the favorite, beyond the margin of error. But very far from his 2017 score where, after a meteoric rise, he beat his rival by 66.1% of the vote against 33.9%, to become, at 39, the youngest president of the V Republic.
Voting by “elimination” or “conviction”
The programs of the two candidates are opposite and offer a radically different vision of Europe, the economy, purchasing power, relations with Russia, pensions, immigration, the environment…
After a five-year period studded with crises, from “yellow vests” to the Covid, these are two Frances facing each other.
To counter his opponent, Emmanuel Macron, who came out on top in the first round (27.85%) with more than four points ahead, reactivated the “republican front” to block the far right. Which, however, seems to have lost its vigor compared to 2017 and 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, was largely dominated in the second round by Jacques Chirac.
The candidate of the National Rally, for her third attempt, bet on another front, the “Everything but Macron” whose scope at the ballot box remains to be measured.
In an affluent district of Dijon (east), Morgan Mouiche, 30, said when he left a polling station to have “voted by elimination”.
At the other end of the city, in a more modest district where the leader of the radical left Jean-Luc Mélenchon came out on top in the first round on April 10, Charley Grolleau, 41, admits that his ballot went to ” a candidate who is not perfect”. “But I voted out of conviction. I couldn’t see myself not going to vote,” he adds.
Between the two rounds, the two candidates courted the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
But many supporters of his party, La France insoumise (LFI), could be tempted to shun the ballot box.
Voters will again be called to the polls on June 12 and 19 for the legislative elections where the new president will seek to obtain the majority necessary to govern.