One Third of French Citizen Refused to Vote in Presidential Election

The abstention rate and the number of spoiled or blank votes in Sunday’s French presidential election turned out to be record-high, with one French citizen out of three refuting to vote for centrist Emmanuel Macron or right-wing Marine Le Pen, local media reported.

According to BFM TV channel, some 12 million people decided to abstain from voting at the runoff, while over 4.2 million of French citizens cast a blank or spoiled ballot. The figured turned out to be higher than during the first round of election, which took place on April 23.

A poll conducted by Opinion Way showed that 25 percent of supporters of Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of the left-wing political movement La France Insoumise (Unsubmissive France), decided to put a blank ballot in the ballot box or spoil it. The same did 27 percent of France Arise (Debout la France) party leader Nicolas Dupont-Aignan’s supporters, 21 percent of The Republicans’ nominee Francois Fillon’s voters and 9 precent of those of the Socialist Party candidate Benoit Hamon.

Following the first round of election, mass protests under slogan “Ni Le Pen, Ni Macron” took place across the country as people were dissatisfied with the emerged candidates for the presidency.