Une victoire pour la democratie

A victory for democracy took place this weekend. Well, in France at least. 85 percent of all registered voters in France voted in the first round of the presidential election. That's about 13 percent more than when Chirac was elected in 2002. That's also about 25 percent greater than in the U.S. presidential campaign of 2004, despite the fact that the campaign budgets of both candidates added up to over 650 million dollars each. And the U.S. election turnout in 2004 was the highest since 1968. In 2000 for example, only a little more than 50 percent of America's voting age population actually cast a ballot.

Low voter turnout rates always astonish me: How can one simply not care about who governs and makes your laws when one is confronted every day with the effects of public policy — taxes, minimum wage, family law, drinking age law, etc.? How can a patriotic people simply not care what direction their country is taking?

Individual characteristics are powerful tools in explaining abstention. It is no secret that young people and working-class people forget to vote. More surprisingly, Elizabeth Smith showed in 1999 that religious participation, close familial relationships and involvement in extracurricar activities such as child rearing predict greater political involvement.

The French election shows, however, that there are ways to go against demographic trends and get people to vote. This was the first French election using new media outlets to campaign such as blogs, facebook.com groups, students emailing, etc. Another reason more people voted was that the campaign touched upon really sensitive issues such as immigration and welfare. The equivalent in the United States would be gun control and abortion, which really gets out the vote. The French really believed that this election was about values. The polarization of the debate between conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and left-wing Segolene Royal brought about anxiety and enthusiam. According to George Marcus and Michael Mackuen's study of public reaction to political figures, these are the two emotions that produce involvement in political debates. I've never been in favor of polarized debates, but I guess high turnouts are a positive side effect.

So what do the results of the French election reveal about the new political landscape? They show that the new democratic life is being reshaped, and I believe it is being reshaped for the better. For the first time since the 1970s, the number of votes for the extreme right candidate's, in this case, Jean-Marne Le Pen, decreased, from 16 percent to about 10 percent. All the extreme-left candidates drew few votes, generally less than 2 percent. The sheep farmer candidate, Jose Bove, only scored 1.3 percent. I believe the weakening of the extremes can only strengthen the quality of the debate of more moderate candidates.

The big winner of this first round of the elections is Sarkozy. He is somewhat like a modern version of Margaret Thatcher: His strong personality has brought him the admiration of some and the hate of the others. His garnering of 31 percent of the vote shows that he has taken t some votes of the extreme-right by using some of its major themes like immigration. In the second round, he will be facing sexy left-wing candidate Royal, who received 25 percent of the vote thanks to her motto "La France presidente."

The big surprise of the election, however, was Francois Bayrou's 18 percent of the vote. My personal favorite, Bayrou managed to create a moderate political force with a budget of only about 10 million dollars. So, now Sarkozy and Royal are in a big fight to pick up the votes in the center. Sarkozy has made a very moderate speech after the elections, valuing "the gathering of the French people " and "respect," and Royal "forgot" to mention the word "left" in her speech. I really like this moment of the debate, which is really full of suspense. I hope, however, that the second round will not be framed as a referendum of Sarkozy's positions. It would be better if a clear debate of ideas took place between two very different visions of France. I hope that the debate will stay exciting so that the turnout remains high for the four times the French have to vote in the next two months. I hope that we can prove that modern democracies are not doomed to suffer from the rising apathy that many exemplify today. Soleine Leprince, a visiting student, is a history and international and public affairs major from Paris, France. She may be reached at leprince@princeton.edu.