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LAST UPDATE | 24 Apr 2022
FRENCH VOTERS ARE heading to the polls for the presidential run-off between centrist incumbent Emmanuel Macron and his challenger Marine Le Pen, whose far-right party appears set to have its strongest election showing ever.
Macron went into the election with a stable lead in opinion polls, an advantage he consolidated in the frenetic final days of campaigning, including a no-holds-barred performance in the pre-election debate.
But analysts have cautioned that Macron, who rose to power in 2017 aged 39 as the country’s youngest-ever modern leader, can take nothing for granted given forecasts of low turnout that could sway the result in either direction.
The second round run-off is a repeat of the clash between Le Pen and Macron in 2017 when the centrist won 66 percent of the vote. But the margins are seen as being far narrower this time, with polls projecting a victory for Macron by around 10 percentage points.
At 5pm local time, voter participation stood at 63.2 percent, more than two percentage points lower than at the same time five years ago, when Macron handily beat Le Pen in their first face-off.
On the basis of that figure, polling firms estimated that the abstention rate was on course for 28 percent which, if confirmed, would be the highest in any French presidential run-off since 1969.
Le Pen beamed as she greeted supporters before casting her ballot in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont, a stronghold of her National Rally party.
Macron, meanwhile, worked a crowd of several hundreds before voting with his wife Brigitte in the Channel resort town of Le Touquet, where they own a holiday home.
Voting stations will close at 8pm (7pm Irish time), when polling firms will begin publishing preliminary results based on partial counts that usually predict the final result with a high degree of accuracy.
Macron in particular is hoping that left-wing voters who backed other candidates in the first round will support the former investment banker and his pro-business, reformist agenda to stop Le Pen and her populist programme.
But far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who scored a close third-place finish in the first round, has pointedly refused to urge his millions of followers to back Macron while insisting they should not vote for Le Pen.
Macron himself repeatedly said that the complacency of stay-at-home voters precipitated the shocks of the 2016 elections that led to Brexit in Britain and Donald Trump’s election in the United States.
One factor for the likely high abstention rate is that elections are being held during the Easter school break in much of France.
According to Martial Foucault, director of the CEVIPOF political studies centre, a high abstention rate will narrow the gap between Macron and Le Pen, describing this as a “real risk” for the president.
The stakes are huge for both France and Europe, with Macron pledging reform and tighter EU integration while Le Pen, who would be France’s first female president, insists the bloc should be modified in what opponents describe as “Frexit” by another name.
Macron has also opposed Le Pen’s plan to make it illegal to wear the Muslim headscarf in public, though her team has walked back on the proposal ahead of the vote, saying it was no longer a “priority”.
They have also clashed on Russia, with Macron seeking to portray Le Pen as incapable of dealing with the invasion of Ukraine due to a loan her party took from a Russian-Czech bank.
Macron would be the first French president to win re-election in two decades since Jacques Chirac in 2002.
If he does, he is expected to address supporters on the Champ de Mars in central Paris at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
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Wait for 6 months for a test then some instructor fails you the day of the test because he’s in bad form or had an argument with the missus that morning. Then wait another 6 months to repeat
@barry williams: instructors don’t test you.
@William Ryan: testers/instructors whatever they call themselves. I’m sure you know what I mean
@barry williams: that’s simply untrue. You fail because you didn’t drive well enough to pass. The least we can do before allowing people.to drive is test them properly. Testers have clear criteria and scoring mechanism and share the scores. Its a fair test of ability. The waiting times are a disgrace though. Government paying lip service to road safety when they do nothing about ensuring more people are tested to prove they can drive safely and qualified.
With recent massive price rises for tests and drivers licences, it all seems to have gotten worse. One thing I notice in Ireland is the more you pay for public services, the worse the service is.
Massive pay cuts to managers in the RSA and Dept of Transport until all waiting lists are cut to the minimum. Same for HSE. Hit incompetency in the pocket, the only way to sort out the shambles of it all.
@Lone Hurler: DOGE
Ah sure the Labour party will sort it out
@Eddienowy Byrne: yes. A brilliant counter intuitive move: increase the waiting lists with further tests. And then the waiting lists will shrink immediately. Why not put more people in hospital while we are at it.
@Alan:
Pity no one actually read what the Labour Party proposed:
1. Sort out the waiting lists for the PRACTICAL driver test; and then
2. Look at having people resit a THEORY test at renewal.
There are no waiting lists for the theory test
@NiallM: this is The Journal comments section, there is no reading, just venting
@NiallM: what are their proposals to sort out waiting lists?
Does anything in this country work properly?
@Tony Murphy: your phone?
If they didnt have so many “quota fails” on a daily basis then the waiting list wouldnt be as long, i wonder how many of them 13,500 are waiting to repeat their test, failed me during covid when insurance companies werent sending out discs and i didnt have colour ink in my printer so no green strip on the disc, no test…its like the nct they quota fail to make more money
@he didnt take the 120k because he already got it split over 3 years: I find it hard to believe that your insurance company did not post you originals.
They are giving out licenses Like confetti at a wedding.
@Phillip Smyth: high failure rates result in increased waiting list thus making your statement nonsensical.
@William Ryan: so many applications they cannot keep up, still giving out many applications that pass in huge amounts, and loads of non passing,in huge amounts, thus hence, many like confetti. Capice.
@Phillip Smyth: your confetti metaphor does not work.
Good, leave them their, road network is over capacity anyway. Years of neglect in the sector
@Thesaltyurchin: “young people shouldn’t be allowed to drive because it will inconvenience my ability to drive”
why don’t the ask for their test to be switched to another center? I did that when there was a backlog in my area, I did a practice with my driiving instructor on the new area before the test and flew through it.
Drive safely, wear a condom.
Obviously wages in these test centres for the average workers are garbage if so short staffed with big lists and needing temp driving testers
@Dan The Man: testers start on around 35k I think.
What percentage of people pass their test the first time, are many on this list resits?
If so then the instruction process needs to be looked at?
have your say