Presidential elections in France: disenchanted, the French vote and could decide a sharp turn to the country's politics

At least in Paris, the one-day sun that started slightly temperate, frames an election day where the French began to define what kind of country they want for the next few years. A very special election, as the far right could approach the presidency of France like never before.

Almost 49 million qualified people are called to the polls this Sunday to decide among the twelve candidates running in the first round of the presidential elections. For many, the contest will not only be central to consider how they are projected in the next five years, but also a signal for a continent that is going through enormous difficulties.

The 2022 presidential elections in France, the twelfth of the Fifth Republic, although they have the current president, the centrist Emmanuel Macron, leading the polls, and could be re-elected, he has never had the extreme right, with Marine Le Pen at the helm, with so many chances of staying for five years at the helm of the Elysium. The degree of apathy, not only in the face of Macron's unfulfilled promises, but also on the political class, could mark another result: historical abstention.

From that electoral promise of 2017, of a disruptive, intelligent, albeit somewhat arrogant young man, for the consolidation of a thriving, inclusive, egalitarian and innovative France, Macron has achieved little. Disenchantment, in addition to greater fragmentation, opens the way for the French to approach extremes. Something that, that young and brilliant politician born in Amiens, has not been able to push away.

The candidates' campaign has been suspended since midnight on Saturday and until 8pm tonight, when the results will be released gradually after the counting of the “ballots”. As Infobae could see in Paris, polling stations began to operate, without major problems, between 8.00 and 19.00 in most of the country, except in large cities where they will run until 20.00. However, the first voters began to go to the polls on Saturday, in the overseas territories and abroad.

Despite the increase in Covid-19 infections in recent days, the health protocol in schools was light, which did not cause greater delays for those who came to vote. If hydroalcoholic gel is available, but the use of a mask is not mandatory, although recommended for the authorities. There are also no capacity, nor compulsory distancing, but if “you have to separate entry and exit”, at least the guidelines recommended by health officials.

The French Constitutional Council, on March 7, validated 12 nominations for the first round, after the applicants obtained the 500 signatures needed in at least thirty different departments to be qualified. Today, the French can vote between Nathalie Arthaud, Fabien Roussel, Emmanuel Macron, Jean Lassalle, Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot, Valérie Pécresse, Philippe Poutou and Nicolás Dupont-Aignan. This random order is important, as it is the order in which the candidates' posters were pasted, as well as the order in which they find the ballots.

Abstention is another threat to the French political system. The first projections confirmed a three-point drop in turnout compared to 2017. The participation rate in the first round of the presidential elections reached 25.48% at noon on Sunday, April 10, according to official figures released by the Ministry of the Interior.

By way of comparison, in 2017, participation in the first round at noon was 28.54%. In 2002, at the same time, it was 21.4%, a record abstention for a presidential election in the last twenty years.

According to the latest polls, 72% of respondents said they were sure to vote this Sunday. It was three points better than a week before. In 2017, 77.7% of voters participated in the first round and 74.5% in the second round, with about a quarter of voters choosing not to vote.

The vote of the candidates

This morning, to the applause of his followers, the candidate for president and deputy of rebel France, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was voting in a school in his constituency in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône). He is the third candidate of the day to go to the polls for the first round, after Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, and Philippe Poutou in Bordeaux (Gironde).

Further north, the other area with the most candidates is Les-Hauts-de-France. We found that there was Emmanuel Macron, a candidate for re-election, who was voting in the municipality of Le Touquet. The candidate of the National Group, Marine Le Pen, voted in Hénin-Beaumont in Pas-de-Calais, where she is a deputy.

In the afternoon, each political group has chosen a space to receive information from the Ministry of the Interior, in charge of the election. President Emmanuel Macron, as a candidate, will await the recount at the Porte de Versailles Center from 5pm.

Like other years, starting at 20 o'clock, the French media begins to release the first estimates of the results of the first round. However, the National Commission for the Control of the Electoral Campaign for the Presidential Election, CNCCEP and the Electoral Commission, in a press release dated 4 April, recalled the ban on publishing and broadcasting polls the day before and on the day of the first and second rounds.

In that statement, they also noted that major survey institutes will not conduct “ballot box exit" or “urn mouth” polls. The dissemination of results or surveys is even punishable by a fine of 75,000 euros.

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