![Europeans 2024: the French start to vote, Europe holds its breath Europeans 2024: the French start to vote, Europe holds its breath](https://media.lesechos.com/api/v1/images/view/666544f48c92f32afd7bf099/1280x720/01101700044318-web-tete.jpg)
The European vote is officially launched in France. The French started voting at 8 a.m. this Sunday in mainland France, and since Saturday overseas. Polling stations will close at 6 p.m. in the majority of cities, and 8 p.m. in large cities, at which time the first results will be known.
Nearly 50 million French people are called to vote to elect 81 deputies to the European Parliament, making France the second most represented nation after Germany. In total, throughout the European Union, around 370 million people are called to elect 720 deputies by direct universal suffrage.
Low mobilization in sight
The populist parties are expected to win these elections, being very well oriented in the polls in several countries of the Union. Starting with France, where the National Rally led by Jordan Bardella is expected to receive around 33% of the votes, according to the latest estimates given on Friday. The Greens, who obtained good results in the 2019 election, could suffer a setback this Sunday.
But the other big winner of these elections could well be abstention, expected between 50% and 55%. The European elections have always had little mobilization of voters. The abstention record was reached in 2014, at 57%. It was lower in 2019, at 49%.
Major projects ahead for Parliament
This Sunday’s vote could only partially recompose the face of the European Parliament. For the past five years, the majority has been held by the alliance of centre-right (European People’s Party, EPP), center (Renew) and social democrats (S&D) MEPs in Strasbourg.
This year, 37 lists were submitted to run for the election, three more than five years ago. According to polls, the EPP, which had 176 deputies on the eve of the election, should remain the leading political force, followed by the Social Democrats, who had 139.
During this new legislature, the institution must decide on the “green” transition of the Old Continent to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050, but also on a competitive industrial policy vis-à-vis the United States and China, on energy policy and on defense, while the conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues. European parliamentarians will also have to agree on the decisive question of the EU budget for the coming years.
These subjects, however, were rarely discussed during the campaign in many European countries, where the debate was rather dominated by themes often put on the agenda by the far right, in particular that of immigration.
Decisive vote in France
In France, around a third of voters said they were still undecided a week ago. The youngest are those whose vote was still uncertain, particularly on the left, but they could go to the polls more than in 2019. In any case, the polls are not definitive and as in every election, the Things can still change, notably the level of abstention.
But the results will have a particular taste in France: it is the last national election of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term. The oppositions, the RN in the lead, have also tried to make this vote a pro or anti Macron referendum, three years before the end of his mandate.
The President of the Republic has also been accused in recent days of igniting the powder by speaking several times outside the framework of the campaign, while speaking out on the rise of the far-right. The oppositions accused him of not respecting speaking time rules.
The presidential camp, led by Valérie Hayer, is credited with 15% in the latest OpinonWay – Vae Solis barometer for “Les Echos”, barely more than the left-wing Place Publique list of MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, given around 14% . Next come LFI, at 8% in the last poll, then LR and Reconquête, led by Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, both at 6%, then EELV, at 5%. During the last European election, in 2019, the National Rally finished in first place, with 23% of the votes, followed by the presidential Renaissance party, at 22%. Scores that could be much further apart this year.
First results in Europe
On Friday, the first results in the Netherlands, where voters began to vote on Thursday, showed the nationalist right on the rise, with seven deputies. However, it was the social democratic party of Frans Timmermans which came first with eight seats.
Ireland, for its part, began voting on Friday, just like the Czech Republic, one of the most Eurosceptic countries of the 27. Germany and France, which have a total of 177 deputies in the Strasbourg Parliament, will have to wait until Sunday evening to know the first estimates of the vote.