PARIS — France may be on virtual lockdown in a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus, but it is still going ahead with the first round of local elections.
Voters hit the polls Sunday across the country to elect local officials, including mayors, for six-year terms, barely 12 hours after Prime Minister Edouard Philippe ordered the shuttering of all restaurants, cinemas and businesses except pharmacies, supermarkets, banks and gas stations.
But many voters stayed home.
At noon, the participation rate was 18 percent, almost 5 percentage points lower than at the same time during the last local election in 2014. It is the lowest participation rate recorded at noon in a local election since 1971, according to Jean-Daniel Lévy, director of the political department at polling institute Harris Interactive.
“They should have postponed the election,” said one voter, Marina, as she waited in line to vote at a polling station in the west of Paris. “A part of the population can’t vote today, like my parents who are over 70 and who are not voting because they are afraid of being exposed to the virus.”
But French President Emmanuel Macron repeated once again that there were no scientific grounds for postponing the election.
“We are following the recommendations of scientists,” Macron said as he left his local polling station in the northern city of Le Touquet. “The virus spreads when we spend more than 15 minutes closer than one meter to someone, which is the case at the restaurant, but we can continue shopping for food and stepping out to get some air, and so it was logical to go vote while respecting guidelines.”
Authorities put in place strict measures to minimize transmission risk at the polling stations that were being respected in disparate ways. In order to make sure voters kept a safe distance from each other, their standing positions while queueing were marked with tape on the floor. But at one polling station visited by POLITICO, people were not respecting the distance, though multiple social media posts showed that the guideline was being respected in other places.
Voters were expected to wash their hands when they arrived, show their voter identification cards instead of handing them over to officials, and wash their hands after they were done voting. This protocol wasn’t strictly respected in another polling station visited by POLITICO.
Voting booths were positioned sideways so voters do not have to touch curtains used for privacy. People could either use their own pen to sign the voting ledger or were provided with pens that were disinfected.
In a polling station in the east of Paris, Sylvie, 89, and Colette, 73, said they knew the dangers but see voting as a “civic duty” and “a right for which our feminine ancestors fought so hard.”
Nevertheless, doubts are growing about whether the second round of the elections, meant to be held in a week, will go ahead given the spread of the outbreak.
On Saturday evening, General Director of Health Jérôme Salomon said that the number of confirmed cases had doubled in 72 hours.
“We’re already having trouble recruiting people to count the votes this evening, I really don’t know how they think they’re going to be able to hold the second round of the election, but we will have to wait and see,” said one president of a polling station in Paris, who requested anonymity.