At the end of the first round of the presidential election, with 30.21%, Seine-Saint-Denis recorded the highest rate of abstention in the region and in Metropolitan France. Political scientist Stéphane Rozès explains the reasons for this.
The inhabitants of Seine-Saint-Denis have shunned the polling stations on Sunday April 10 during the first round of the presidential election. The Séquano-Dionysian department recorded the highest rate of abstention in Île-de-France and in metropolitan France.
Thus, 30.21% registered did not travel against 27.51% in 2017. In Île-de-France, abstention amounts to 24%.
Abstention reached 26.31% of registered nationals, the highest level for a first round of presidential elections after 28.4% in 2002.
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Low purchasing power, socio-economic difficulties, isolation and under-equipment of certain districts, remoteness from public services, feeling of exclusion… There are many reasons for this disinterest, as political scientist Stéphane Rozès explains to us. “It is a department whose residents are less integrated socially and in political issues, with in particular low levels of diplomas. The concerns of the inhabitants are therefore usually more prosaic than the presidential election.“, he explains.
The professor at Sciences Po Paris also states that “The fact of being interested in the political rites of the country requires living in a stable socio-cultural environment, but social mobility is too high in the department and the socio-cultural climate does not allow the inhabitants to develop a lasting interest in the questions policies“.
The specialist also points to the lack of social diversity. “It is a department that is experiencing a crisis of republican integration. The low mix tends to isolate populations and leave them in situations that encourage the development of communitarianism. This therefore distances the populations even further from political issues.“, he concludes.
Listen to the silence of the ballot boxes and hear what it says.
Dorian Dreuil, co-president of the NGO A Voted
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The NGO Voted! alert on this record rate of abstention and calls for it to be taken into account by elected officials. “It would be wrong today to think that in the end, we are not breaking the 2002 records and that since we are not around the projections of 30%, in the end we are not doing too badly and we have limited the breakage and that everything’s OK. No, all is not well“, assures Dorian Dreuil, the co-president of the NGO A Voted!
“There is a disconnect between the citizen and the vote“, he adds. For him it is “especially a generational break in the youth“. Thus, it must “listen to the silence of the ballot boxes and hear what it says and it means, and what it imposes on the next leader of the Etat“, analyzes the co-president of the NGO A Voted!.
Three cities in the department exceed an abstention of 35%. To Stains39.09% of voters did not put a ballot in the ballot box. Abstention is also high in Bobigny with 38,27% abstention. Finally, the inhabitants of Aubervilliers also shunned the ballot box since 36,51% of them did not move for voter.
To the scale of Île-de-France, the Val d’Oise is the second department where abstention is the most important this year with 26,29% on this first round. For the second election in a row, the 93 shows the highest rate of abstention in the first round.
As a reminder, the leader of France Insoumise came first in Seine-Saint-Denis with 49.1% of the vote.
