Growing up in Paris’s disadvantaged eastern suburbs, 22-year-old leftwing student Sabrina Robin has long felt abandoned by the political and business elite a few miles away in the city centre, reports the Financial Times.
The idea of casting her vote in France’s presidential election for Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old former Rothschild banker who for her embodies that system, is hard to stomach. But nor is she a fan of far-right leader Marine Le Pen. So if, as polls suggest, the election is a choice between Ms Le Pen and Mr Macron, Ms Robin sees only one option open to her: abstain.
“Macron and his type run around Paris wearing their Louis Vuitton clothes with no idea what’s happening in the real world. I’m not sure I can give someone like that legitimacy with my vote, even if it does help Le Pen,” she says. For voters and investors assessing the chances of a victory for Ms Le Pen and her National Front (FN), the turnout in the election, as well as the solidity of support for the candidates, is likely to prove crucial.
This year’s election could record the highest abstention rate of any French presidential vote, with 37 per cent of people saying they plan to stay at home for the first round in April 23, according to polls. This compares with 20 per cent in the last presidential election, a sign of widespread dissatisfaction with the political class. Regardless of how this affects the first round, it will be in the deciding run-off vote two weeks later between the two leading candidates that France’s stayaway voters could decide the election — potentially in favour of Ms Le Pen. Latest polls show the FN leader, who has campaigned on anti-globalisation and anti-immigration platform, winning just 40 per cent of votes in the second round — short of what she needs to win.
But the loyalty of Ms Le Pen’s fan base will also come into play if Mr Macron’s vote proves less solid. Latest polls show less than two-thirds of voters who say they support Mr Macron are sure to vote in the first round compared with a figure of 83 per cent for backers of Ms Le Pen. “The chance of a Le Pen victory is much higher than the polls indicate,” says Serge Galam, a political scientist at Sciences Po University. He believes the surveys fail to take into account the likelihood that potential second round Macron voters such as Ms Robin will abstain owing to a lack of enthusiasm.