An international media outlet described the country’s democracy as “sick”, citing low turnout in France’s regional elections.
France is suffering from a crisis of democracy.
The problem was on full display Sunday when a record two-thirds of voters snubbed the polls in regional and departmental elections.
Turnout dropped a massive 16 points compared to the last regional election held six years ago.
The fall in turnout wasn’t because of the coronavirus either. Only 17 percent of respondents to an IFOP poll said the pandemic played into their decision not to vote. In contrast, elections held in the past 12 months in Italy, the Netherlands and Germany had turnout at near-normal levels.
For pollsters and political scientists, the record abstention is an alarming sign of a French crisis of representation and democratic apathy, which has been exacerbated by President Emmanuel Macron’s muddying of the traditional left-right divide that used to effectively mobilize voters.
“French democracy is sick,” said Emmanuel Rivière of polling institute Kantar Public. “The political options on offer have become so hard to tell apart that they give the impression that political life is a sort of shadow theater, where politicians are more interested in getting themselves elected than in solving the issues voters care about.”
That could have huge repercussions for next year’s presidential election, potentially endangering Macron’s chances of qualifying for the second round and also weakening his main rival, far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Their fates will depend on whether voters continue to feel the same sense of alienation from the political class and political debate, and whether Macron manages to more clearly define his political line.
Voters could end up repeating what they did in 2017: In electing Macron, they chose an upstart outsider as a mark of protest against the political establishment. Both he and Le Pen continue to position themselves as outsiders railing against a broken political system, but the current dynamic could benefit an unexpected third personality — although it’s unclear at this stage who that could be.
“A huge amount of voters don’t identify with a political party anymore, which has produced an electorate that is extremely fluid and unpredictable and could once again benefit an unknown personality like it did in 2017 with Emmanuel Macron,” said Jean-Yves Dormagen, a political scientist who has studied abstention for decades.
