Rising electoral fragmentation and abstention: the French elections of 2022

Abstract

For the second time in the history of the Fifth Republic, the candidates of France’s former mainstream left- and right-wing parties were disqualified during the first round of the presidential elections. The repetition of the duel between Emmanuel Macron (centrist candidate) and Marine Le Pen (radical-right candidate) in the second round of the presidential election marks the durable transformation of the political space in French politics, an evolution that was already taking shape in 2017. The 2022 parliamentary elections confirmed the transformation and reconfiguration of the political landscape. Overall, the results of the elections in 2022 underscore major shifts in the party system as well as deep political fragmentations not only on the left but also, and in particular, on the right. Above all, the poor level of turnout in both elections reconfirms the considerable and enduring crisis of representative democracy in France.

Keywords:

• Electoral fragmentation
• electoral abstention
• presidential election
• parliamentary election
• France

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Other recent reports in the Elections in Context series include Rori 2020; Little 2021; Faas and Klingelhöfer 2022; Van Holsteyn and Irwin 2022.

2 For instance, Macron told a young unemployed man who was visiting the Elysée Palace on 15 September 2018 who was frustrated at not finding a job: ‘I’ll just cross the street, I'll find you some!’, France Info (2018), ‘Macron fait la leçon a un jeune chômeur dans les jardins de l’Elysée’, https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/emploi/chomage/video-emmanuel-macron-fait-la-lecon-a-un-jeune-chomeur-dans-les-jardins-de-l-elysee_2942833.html, accessed on the 25.08.2022.

3 The French Covid ‘health pass’ made Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for health workers and was required in order to enter all hospitals, restaurants, trains, planes and some other public venues. To get the pass, people needed proof that they were fully vaccinated, had recently tested negative or recently recovered from the Covid-19 virus.

4 See the overview of poll results for all candidates at: https://poliverse.fr/polls/. Launched in March 2022 at the initiative of a group of researchers, the Poliverse blog offers notably an overview of the results of 325 polls published during the French presidential campaign which permits to follow more closely the individual public opinion dynamics for each candidate.

5 Most notably, the candidate from the far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, while condemning Russian killings in Ukraine, repelled many left-wing voters with his positions on Vladimir Putin and France’s status in NATO. Even though Le Pen's affinity with Putin was well known, Marine Le Pen managed, in contrast to her challenger on the extreme right, Eric Zemmour, to frame the issue in terms of purchasing power and the admission of Ukrainian refugees.

6 Le Figaro, ‘Éric Zemmour entend ‘refonder la droite française’, affirme Guillaume Peltier’, https://www.lefigaro.fr/elections/legislatives/eric-zemmour-entend-refonder-la-droite-francaise-affirme-guillaume-peltier-20220501, accessed 25.08.2022.

7 Le Monde, ‘Eric Zemmour: une déroute pour le polémiste d’extrême droite’, https://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2022/article/2022/04/10/une-deroute-pour-le-polemiste-d-extreme-droite-eric-zemmour_6121507_6059010.html, accessed 25.08.2022.

8 It should be noted that in contrast to 2017, women were better represented at the presidential campaign. Four out of twelve candidates were women, the far left (Nathalie Arthaud), the centre-left (Anne Hidalgo), the centre-right (Valérie Pécresse) and the radical right (Marine Le Pen) – a record for France.

9 At a meeting in mid-February 2022 she acknowledged, like her rival Zemmour, the conspiracy theory of the great replacement which suggests that people of French descent are being replaced by people of migrant descent, cf. France Info, ‘Grand remplacement’: de Renaud Camus à Valérie Pécresse en passant par Éric Zemmour, itinéraire d'une théorie complotiste’, https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/complorama/grand-remplacement-de-renaud-camus-a-valerie-pecresse-en-passant-par-eric-zemmour-itineraire-d-une-theorie-complotiste_4968837.html, accessed 26.08.2022.

10 France Info, ‘Présidentielle 2022: Emmanuel Macron et Marine Le Pen en tête, Jean-Luc Mélenchon troisième, selon notre dernier sondage avant le premier tour’, https://www.francetvinfo.fr/elections/presidentielle/presidentielle-2022-emmanuel-macron-et-marine-le-pen-en-tete-jean-luc-melenchon-troisieme-selon-notre-dernier-sondage-avant-le-premier-tour_5070067.html, accessed 16.08.2022.

11 There are 577 single seat-constituencies for the legislative elections in France. Every constituency directly elects one candidate as a member of the National Assembly for a five-year term.

12 Ipsos, ‘Second tour: profil des abstentionnistes et sociologie des électorats‘, https://www.ipsos.com/fr-fr/presidentielle-2022/second-tour-profil-des-abstentionnistes-et-sociologie-des-electorats, accessed 26.08.2022.

13 The ‘front républicain’ describes the long prevailing determination of a great majority of the French electorate to keep the radical right out of power and the call of many disqualified candidates to vote against the candidate of the radical right party (RN former FN).

14 It was the first time since 1981 that the second round of a presidential election in France represents the very same duel between the exact same candidates as in the last election (Emmanuel Macron vs. Marine Le Pen in 2017 and 2022; Valéry Giscard d’Estaing vs. François Mitterand in 1974 and 1981).

15 According to an online Ifop poll conducted between March 30 and 31, only 20% of the French population thought that this campaign would be of “good quality” and only 47% felt that the election campaign addressed the issues they care about, ‘Le regard des français sur la campagne électorale’, https://www.ifop.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/118724-Rapport-SR-N176.pdf, accessed 26.08.2022.

16 Same source as cited in note 12.

17 Agir, En commun, Horizons, La République en marche (renamed Renaissance), Modem, Parti radical and Territoires de progrès.

18 Le Monde, https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2022/06/13/nupes-ensemble-rn-ensemble-nupes-rn-a-quoi-ressemblent-les-duels-du-second-tour-des-legislatives_6130129_4355770.html, accessed 28.08.2022. In 2017, the majority of duels for the second round were between LREM and LR (Durovic 2019).

19 Even from a comparative European perspective, the turnout performance of the French legislative elections in 2022 and 2017 is remarkably low (Faas and Klingelhöfer 2022; Rori 2020; Van Holsteyn and Irwin 2022).

20 Abstention was highest among those aged 18–24 (69%) and 25–34 (71%) as well as among employees (65%) and blue collar workers (62%) those with the lowest net monthly household income (61%), data source: Ipsos, ‘2022 Elections législatives: Sociologie des électorats et profil des abstentionnistes’, https://www.ipsos.com/fr-fr/legislatives-2022/70-des-moins-de-35-ans-nont-pas-vote, accessed 28.08.2022.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anja Durovic

Anja Durovic is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre Emile Durkheim at Sciences Po Bordeaux. She received her PhD in political science at Sciences Po, Paris. Her research focuses on gender and generational inequalities in politicalbehaviour and attitudes as well as on political representation and public opinion. [[email protected]]