That’s how Emilia Julie, a literature student in the populous French capital that helped hand Emmanuel Macron the presidency, christened the roughly 15.5 million renegades who abstained or voided their ballots. The number amounts to a third of registered voters — staggering by French standards — who wanted no part in choosing between Macron, an independent centrist who will become France’s youngest head of state since Napoleon, and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front.
More people abstained than voted for Le Pen, who won about 10.6 million votes, her party’s best performance in a presidential election. The number of blank and voided ballots was a record for France’s Fifth Republic, founded in 1958.
The number of blank and voided ballots was a record for France’s Fifth Republic, founded in 1958.“I choose not to enter the game,” said Julie, 18, who stayed home last Sunday.
“I choose not to enter the game,” said Julie, 18, who stayed home last Sunday to signal her disagreement with both candidates and to deny Macron a mandate. “The abstentionists are the new opposition. Winning a third of the country is not enough, clearly.”
The right to vote, she said, is important. “But it’s more important to vote for someone you actually want to be in office. And I don’t want to be guilty for what Macron does, or doesn’t do.”
Andrй Boursier, a former communist mayor of a small town north of Paris, said Macron is too similar to President Franзois Hollande, a Socialist who will leave office with historically low approval ratings.
“I wasn’t convinced,” he said, “and so I voted blank.”
So did about 4 million others, including those who spoiled their ballots, in what experts described as a militant rejection of “the political system.” They called the historic nonparticipation rate a testament to deepening polarisation and a sign of the tough road ahead for Macron, as he prepares for parliamentary elections in June that will decide whether he can govern with a legislative majority.
“It’s not just saying, ‘I don’t care about the choice, so I won’t go to the polling station,’” said Sylvain Brouard, a political scientist at Sciences Po in Paris. “It’s saying, ‘I’m going to the polling station, I’m playing the democratic game, but neither of the candidates are good enough for me. So I do not choose.”
It was not so much evidence of depoliticisation as a sign of polarisation, Brouard said, and “a brutal narrowing of the political supply, the refusal to be satisfied after strongly supporting some specific party or candidate.”
On the one hand, Macron’s victory was resounding — he won 66 percent of the vote.
“But there is also a clear sense of unease with the new president in a large fraction of the electorate,” Brouard said.