Abstention in municipal elections: between distancing yourself from local politics and devitalizing the municipal situation in rural areas – Fondation Jean-Jaurès

Were the municipal elections of March 2026 going to confirm the downward trend in participation, observed throughout the elections? This is in fact what happened, analyzes Jérôme Fourquet, director of the Opinion and Business Strategies department of Ifop, which shows an impressive fall in rural areas. This testifies, according to him, to a growing distance from politics, including local politics, even though the municipal elections take place at a level par excellence of proximity.

After the record abstention (55%) recorded in the first round of the 2020 municipal elections, a vote having taken place while the psychosis of the Covid-19 virus was sweeping the entire country, the question of the level of participation in the 2024 municipal elections tormented candidates and commentators. Would we find a rate equivalent to, or even higher than, that of the 2014 municipal elections, or would this election constitute a new stage in the downward trend in participation taking shape in municipal election after municipal election?

A growing distance from politics, including local politics

With a participation of only 57%, the question was decided on the evening of the first round. This rate is down almost seven points compared to the 2014 election and, as shown in the graph below, the participation curve continued its downward trajectory.

Evolution of participation in the first round of municipal elections in mainland France since 1965

We are therefore in the presence of a long-term trend phenomenon, the causes of which we must identify. When we question the abstainers, they first mention the incapacity of the policy to respond to their needs and improve their living conditions. This perceived powerlessness of politics is felt, even though it is an election taking place in the municipality, the ultimate level of proximity. The fact that the action of mayors and municipalities, despite being in charge of daily life, is no longer perceived by so many French people as something sufficiently important or significant for them. that they are mobilizing and indicating their preference in this matter says a lot about both the political crisis and the depoliticization of a whole part of the population, who feels neither represented, nor listened to, nor integrated into the democratic community. the skills of local authorities as well as political oppositions and their incarnation in local personalities and figures represent a universe and an obscure world for many French people, who have dropped out of politics, even local politics. Illustration among others, when 74% of French people could mention the name of their mayor. 2017, only 60% are now able to do so. These “dropouts” have refocused on their daily lives, their loved ones and their hobbies, while, for others, it is the difficult end of the month and social difficulties that have diverted them from the political and municipal debate.

This distancing from local public life hits hard the regional daily press (PQR), whose raison d’être was precisely to show and tell about the life of the territory, the initiatives and decision-making of municipalities, but also local controversies and debates. As Jean-Laurent Cassely and David Medioni have clearly shown, the distribution of the regional daily press is declining, in favor of local Facebook pages, non-institutionalized and less generalist information channels and giving pride of place to subjectivity and targeted information, reaching, thanks to the magic of algorithms, niche audiences or affinity. The decline of the PQR and the trend increase in abstention in local elections (during the last regional elections in June 2021, abstention reached nearly 67%) constitute two twin symptoms of this withdrawal and civic disinterest and citizen. And it is no coincidence that the PQR’s audience remains among seniors, the age group among which participation in municipal elections is the highest, and that, conversely, 18-35 year olds, who abstained much more massively, read very little of the local press.

Age effect and generation effect

These very marked differences according to the age of citizens are not new and relate in part to what sociologists call an “age effect” (which they distinguish from the “generation effect”). This age effect refers to behaviors that are specific to a given age and that we observe regardless of the era or period.

Thus, as shown in the following table, comparing the participation rate by age group in the municipal elections of 2008 and in 2026, the participation rate of young people has remained relatively stable over time and significantly lower than in the population average and from a stronger than among seniors. Symmetrically, the latter were already characterized eighteen years ago as the most participatory age group. This stability in the level of participation at both ends of the age pyramid, almost twenty years apart, puts us on the trail of an age effect.

Among young people, interest in local politics, the process of registering on the electoral lists as well as voting are historically less widespread than among seniors, who have more time to follow local news and, moreover, in general, are more residentially sedentary and more diligent in “their” polling station, in which they have their habits.

Comparison of the participation rate in the first round of municipal elections by age groups between 2008 and 2016

Source: Insee 2008 and Ifop 2026 participation survey.

However, alongside this structural age effect, comparing figures eighteen years apart also reveals a generational effect, that is to say a characteristic or behavior specific to a given generational cohort. Thus, while in 2008 the participation rate was still very high among the intermediate age groups (35-64 year olds), this rate fell significantly in 2026 among people now in these ages. While eighteen years ago, structurally low participation among those under 35 rose very significantly after the age of 35, the increase in participation is now much less spectacular after 35. The generations who are between 35 and 64 years old today seem significantly less civic-minded and less interested in municipal and communal issues than the generations who were the same age in 2008. The next elections will tell us whether, having reached seniority, these 35-64 year olds will adopt a higher electoral participation reflex due to age effect or if the generation effect will lead to a drop in participation among these future 65 year olds and over. If we base ourselves on current data, the two phenomena already seem to be at work among today’s seniors who, due to age, are still the most numerous to vote, but among whom the participation rate has already eroded a little compared to what we observed among those aged 65 and over in 2008 (-5 participation points), due to the arrival at the age of seniority of the vanguard of a less civic-minded generational cohort.

A staggering election campaign

Parallel to these structural determinants of abstention, participation was also weakened by cyclical elements, first and foremost particularly busy international news. The latter monopolized media attention, reducing to a bare minimum the bandwidth available to deal with the municipal election campaign.

Thus, the year 2026 began on January 3 with screens being saturated with stunning images of the commando operation led by the United States to capture Venezuelan President Maduro in his residence in Caracas. A few days later, Donald Trump reiterated his “need” to control Greenland before denying on January 9 the sovereignty of Denmark over this territory. In reaction, on January 15, different European armies sent a contingent of soldiers to reaffirm Danish sovereignty on Greenland and the membership of this territory in the European Union. The Greenlandic crisis had barely (temporarily?) calmed down when media attention was going to be completely attracted by the publication by the American justice system on January 30 of a new voluminous batch of documents from the “Epstein Files”. The discovery of links between the sexual predator and numerous prominent figures, in France and abroad, kept the media and public opinion in suspense for several weeks. Caroline Lang was interviewed about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein on February 5 on BFMTV; his father, Jack Lang, resigned on February 7 from the presidency of the Arab World Institute and it was on February 23 – three weeks before the first round of municipal elections – that The World published an investigation which caused a stir entitled “The disturbing intimacy of the Lang clan with Jeffrey Epstein”.

At the same time, after the lull observed in Greenland, a new source of geopolitical tensions was rekindled with the announcement by Donald Trump, on January 26, of the dispatch of an aircraft carrier and its carrier group to the Persian Gulf. Two weeks later, we learned on February 13 – one month before the first round of municipal elections – that a second American aircraft carrier was going to be deployed in the area. The outbreak of hostilities occurred on February 28, with a first wave of devastating Israeli-American strikes on Iran.

Thus, from the end of January 2026, the French media space plunged, first, into an atmosphere of arms vigil, experts and retired generals succeeding one another on the sets, then from the end of February, in special broadcasts, the information being punctuated by the duplexes with the special envoys deployed in the conflict zone and the multi-daily reports of Israeli-American aerial bombardments and Iranian drone and missile attacks.

This omnipresence of international news in the French media space during the first months of 2026 has further reduced the air and screen time available to deal with national and municipal news. During the months of January and February 2014, the period preceding the municipal elections which also took place in March that year, “C dans l’air”, a flagship program on the French television landscape broadcast on France 5, devoted no less than 13 broadcasts on national politics. In January and February of this year, only 4 “C dans l’air” broadcasts dealt with this subject, compared to 36 discussing the international situation.

But the municipal campaign did not only suffer from competition from very busy international news. It also suffered from the fact that the presidential camp decided, according to the now established formula, to “step through the ballot”. Contrary to what was observed during the municipal campaigns taking place before Emmanuel Macron came to power, the presidential coalition, poorly established on the ground and undoubtedly fearing an electoral disappointment, presented very few lists stamped “majority presidential election”. With a few exceptions (Annecy, Lille, Bordeaux…), Macronist candidates most often present themselves as part of union and assembly lists (most of the time with the right). In the same way, the members of the government and the executive couple were very little involved in the campaign and did not increase the number of trips to the field or the meetings. The weak presence of representatives of the presidential camp and the non-engagement of the executive in the campaign denationalized this election. Traditionally in large and medium-sized cities, municipal elections were similar to mid-term elections and had a national dimension, with some voters mobilizing to support or sanction the representatives of the presidential camp. This year, this spring worked much less, which undoubtedly had a downward impact on participation. According to Ifop data, 74% of voters who took part in the municipal elections this year indicated that their vote did not take into account the action of the president and the government, compared to only 65%, for example, during the 2008 municipal elections. Â Â

The suppression of the campaign by the presidential camp and its consequence, the neutralization of the traditional sanction vote in the cities, contributed to weakening the importance of this election in the eyes of the French and the media, also monopolized by very busy international news. These economic factors have added to the trend of distancing oneself from local political life, mentioned previously. This growing interest can be measured using an Ifop barometer, which quantifies every month what subjects have animated the conversations of the French. As the graph below indicates, in mid-February 2008, no less than 62% of French people had discussed with their loved ones the campaign for the municipal elections which would take place a few weeks later, during the month of March. This presence of municipal elections in the conversations of our fellow citizens has since only declined, ballot after ballot, to reach the score of 48% this year.

2008-2026: evolution of the share of French people who spoke with their loved ones about the campaign for the municipal elections

This lesser appetite was not only observed during the campaign, but also on the evening of the first round and when the results were announced. The election evenings organized by the three main channels (TF1, France 2 and France 3) brought together no less than 14.2 million viewers on the evening of the first round of municipal elections on March 9, 2008. Six years later, the cumulative audience had fallen to 11.4 million on March 23, 2014 and, on March 15, this figure stood at only 10.8 million. Since 2008, continuous news channels have certainly gained momentum, but the election evenings offered by the major channels remain a structuring point of reference and the fact that these programs are seeing their audience decline significantly (-25% of viewers compared to 2008) constitutes an additional indicator of the disinterest of a growing part of the population with this electoral meeting.

A significantly greater drop in participation in rural communities

After having mentioned the different sources of abstention, we must now look at the evolution of participation according to the strata of municipalities, because, as we will see, if the drop in participation was a general phenomenon, it was clearly more marked in certain types of municipalities.

Comparison of the participation rate in the first round of municipal elections between 2014 and 2026 depending on the size of the municipality

Traditionally, in 2014 as in 2026, the participation rate was significantly higher in rural communities than in cities. But at the same time, it is precisely in these rural areas that the drop in participation was greatest with a drop of almost ten points in municipalities with less than 3,500 inhabitants, compared to a drop of only 3.7 points in towns with more than 20,000 inhabitants.

In municipalities with less than 1,000 inhabitants, the end of variegation, a practice which consisted of the voter being able to cross out the names of candidates from a list or add others, has certainly changed the situation and removed a powerful incentive which could encourage voting. The counting of votes and the proclamation of the results were in fact in these villages the object of particular attention on the part of many inhabitants who could thus gauge the popularity of one or the disgrace of another, in a configuration mixing the most elementary democracy and rivalry or interpersonal relationships. However, in municipalities with 1000 to 3500 inhabitants, the possibility of mixing was not eliminated between 2014 and 2026 and, yet, participation there also declined significantly. The end of mixing cannot therefore alone explain the significant drop in participation in rural areas.

In the same way, gender parity on the lists, which until now was not obligatory in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, came into force for this election. This provision, criticized by certain rural mayors – because, according to them, it makes it more difficult to constitute lists in small municipalities -, could undoubtedly also have had a negative impact on participation, to the extent that the latter falls significantly when the number of lists present in a municipality goes from two to one, we will come back to this. However, this imposition of parity did not occur between 2014 and 2026 in municipalities with 1000 to 3500 inhabitants and, however, participation has also declined significantly. HAS

To summarize, the new electoral rules (end of diversity and parity) introduced during this election in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants contributed to increasing the general and significant drop in participation in rural areas. In municipalities with 1000 to 3500 inhabitants, a stratum of municipalities also belonging to the rural world, the drop in participation was in fact 9.2 points, even though the electoral rules had not been modified for this election for this type of municipalities. The decline is even more pronounced in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, at -11.1 points. There is therefore a gap of 1.9 points between the decline in participation between these two strata of municipalities, a difference that can be attributed to the sole effect of the modification of the electoral rules in municipalities with less than 1000 inhabitants. HAS

Other factors must therefore be cited to explain this significant drop in participation in rural communities. One of them lies in the reduction in the number of lists present in this type of municipality. Generally speaking, when only one list is presented in a municipality, participation is significantly lower than when at least two lists compete. If the presence of a large number of lists does not significantly and linearly boost participation, the fact that the voter has the choice (the least between two lists) or not (presence of a single list) on the other hand has a powerful effect on participation. In the first round of municipal elections in 2026, participation thus reached only 62.5% in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants in which the electoral choice came down to a single list, compared to a participation of 79.3% in municipalities of the same size, where two lists were in competition. Same very substantial participation differential in municipalities with 1000 to 3500 inhabitants: 52.2% average participation in municipalities with a single list, compared to 67.5% in those where two lists were present. However, as the following table shows, in France’s villages, towns and cantonal capitals, the proportion of municipalities in which only one list was presented (and where the choice offered to voters was essentially reduced to voting for this list or not voting) increased significantly in 2026.

In the overwhelming majority of municipalities with less than 1000 inhabitants, the electoral offer was therefore reduced to a list; this was also the case in the majority of those with less than 3,500 inhabitants and in an increasing proportion of those with 3,500 to 9,999 inhabitants. And this increase in the proportion of municipalities with a single list has significantly reduced participation by reducing the choice offered to voters.

This reduction in the number of lists presented in these municipalities and this drop in vocations constitute an illustration of the wear and tear of civic engagement in the rural world. But, parallel to this crisis of vocations, a more general democratic fatigue has also manifested itself concerning not the fact of presenting oneself on a list, but concerning the elementary democratic act: the vote. Whether only one list is present or whether citizens have the choice between two or more lists, in all cases, participation in the first round of municipal elections has in fact declined in these small municipalities compared to 2014.

Comparison of the proportion of municipalities where only one list presented itself in the first round of municipal elections between 2014 and 2026

+ 8,7 points

59,6%

-5,3 pts

However, we will note a cumulative effect of the two phenomena: the downward trend in participation between 2014 and 2026 is further amplified in municipalities where only one list was presented.

Democratic fatigue and devitalization of the communal situation in rural areas

As we have seen, the reduction in the number of lists, reducing the electoral choice to a single list in the majority of rural communes, had a significant impact on the participation of residents in the vote. This vocations crisis has not primarily affected the political personnel already in place. Indeed, according to calculations by Pierre-Henri Bono, compared to what we observed in 2014, the proportion of outgoing mayors representing themselves remained very stable in municipalities with less than 3,500 inhabitants. However, in the smallest municipalities, we note an erosion of the representation rate among mayors (but the latter only constituted 20% of the mayors in office in these municipalities). Evolution of the proportion of mayors representing themselves in municipalities with less than 3,500 inhabitantsSource : Pierre-Henri Bono,

Statistical overview of municipal elections, Cevipof research note, Municipales 2026 collection, n°1, March 2026.

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If the electoral offer has been restricted, it is therefore firstly because the appetite for municipal commitment has declined among the inhabitants of rural communities and that there have often not been enough citizens (parity of the lists requires) to constitute a second list to face that of the outgoing mayor. Everything happens as if the animation of local democracy rested in rural areas on a limited group of committed and involved individuals, but that this pool was struggling to renew itself and to generate new vocations among the administrators of these municipalities. Faced with this situation, two readings are possible. The optimistic hypothesis would be that the inhabitants of these rural municipalities being very largely satisfied with the action of their mayor (more than 70% according to Ifop data), the desire to commit to replacing him and bringing another municipal team to the town hall was hardly widespread. According to the pessimistic hypothesis, a growing number of residents would distance themselves from local and municipal life and adopt a posture of citizen-consumers and no longer engaged citizens, an attitude regularly denounced by mayors when they are interviewed about their daily life as elected officials and their experiences as first aediles. These two avenues are not contradictory and undoubtedly play a cumulative and combined role in this decline in local commitment in rural communities compared to the 2014 election.

But another parameter also weighs on the slightest enthusiasm for communal life. It finds its origin in the territorial modification of the institutional landscape between these two elections. In 2015, the NOTRe law (new territorial organization of the Republic) reinforced the logic of intercommunalities. The management of a common service by the public intermunicipal cooperation establishment (EPCI) thus becomes the rule and the management of the service by the municipality the exception. This law also very significantly raises the minimum population threshold authorized for an EPCI from 5,000 to 15,000 inhabitants. This provision has led many communities of municipalities to come together and merge. While there were 2,409 communities of communes in 2010 and the number had already been reduced to 1,842 in 2014, their number was, at the end of the application of the NOTRe law, reduced to 992 in 2023, i.e. a division by two compared to 2014 and by 2.5 compared to 2010. 2010-2025: evolution of the number of communities of communes Mechanically, the geographical perimeter of most communities of municipalities has increased significantly, as has the number of municipalities constituting them, the average number of municipalities per community of municipalities increasing from 13 in 2010 to 26 today. If, on the administrative and financial level, a rationalization of the intercommunity map could undoubtedly be agreed, the creation of these structures bringing together on average around thirty municipalities has undoubtedly distanced citizens from decision-making power. In addition, the skills devolved to the communities of municipalities are far from being negligible and affect the daily life of the populations. They concern the creation and management of activity zones, the development of the local intercommunal town planning plan, the collection and treatment of household waste, but also the management of water and sanitation. The transfer of the latter aroused numerous oppositions from villages which considered themselves deprived of a precious communal resource. Seen from Paris or from the large regional metropolises, this debate may seem parochial and from another time, but this is to misunderstand and underestimate the place and importance of water and sources both in the history and imagination of rural France (let us only think of

Manon of the sources

de Pagnol), but also in the contemporary life of these territories, the supply of healthy and unpolluted water becoming a real issue. Moreover, at the end of a long fight relayed by several senators, rural mayors have just obtained the repeal of this decision for the municipalities which had until now refused to submit to it. However, for most rural municipalities, this competence has already been transferred and going back is not authorized.

Whether it is the question of water or that of waste, local economic development or town planning, on all these subjects which are sources of debate, requests or regular recriminations on the part of those administered, rural mayors are now obliged to refer to the “interco” or the “com’ com”. Thus, the idea is gradually spreading in the France of towns and villages that “the town hall is no longer in charge” on all these issues and that the decision and the action now reside elsewhere, in a structure with vague contours and opaque or complex functioning. In these rural territories, the commune has always been presented as the elementary brick of the Republic and as the precious crucible where democracy at human level was exercised. The inhabitants of towns and villages went massively to the polls to elect a mayor whom they knew and encountered frequently, thus entrusting him with responsibility for common affairs and basic services. But as the municipality has seen itself stripped of its power to act, by budgetary insufficiency (rural municipalities having, for example, often not had the financial resources to cope, alone, with the treatment of waste) or by legislative decision, the subtle balance which had been patiently built and on which communal democracy rested, was broken. Why still vote for the mayor of the village or town if he no longer really has a grip on everyday issues and if now decisions and arbitrations are made elsewhere?

The NOTRe law is only the latest in a long series of reforms that have modified the local institutional landscape. In 2010, another text had, for example, put an end to the clause of general competence for the municipalities, made the membership of each municipality to an EPCI compulsory and encouraged the creation of new municipalities on the basis of merger mergers. Â Â

But, alongside this modification of the institutional framework, the sociology and demography of the rural world have also evolved significantly in thirty years. The French countryside, sometimes presented as immutable, changed greatly during this period. The weight of the agricultural world, which had already decreased since the 1970s and 1980s, has fallen further, the number of farmers being divided by more than two: 740,000 in 1995 compared to only 350,000 in 2025. Other traditional figures of the rural world, hunters have seen their emotional contracts contract very significantly, going from 1,520,000 hunting license holders in 1995 to 950,000 in 2025. These developments are not insignificant insofar as they have influenced local sociability. Farmers and hunters – but we could also mention artisans and traders – belonged to networks of mutual knowledge which linked these communities. Most of them were born in these villages and towns and knew many of the other inhabitants through family or through daily and long-standing acquaintances. Beyond these emblematic traditional figures, a whole part of the rural population enjoyed what sociologist Nicolas Renahy calls “indigenous capital”. But, with the decline in agricultural numbers, the reduction in the number of traders, artisans and hunters and the arrival of new populations not originally from “the area” attracted by the living environment or more affordable housing costs than in the city or in the peri-urban rings, the Local sociability has been transformed and networks of mutual knowledge have expanded. Many rural mayors today declare that they only know a part of the population of their municipality, whereas around thirty years ago, their predecessors had a much better connection and osmosis with their constituents at the time. The emergence of this new rural population, not from the region and less integrated into the local associative or relational fabric, came to light during the mobilization of the “yellow vests”. When the mayors of the areas concerned went to the roundabouts or the filter dams, they often noticed that a whole section of the people present, although living in the town or nearby, were unknown to them.

And when we compare the evolution of electoral participation over thirty years in the different municipal strata, its spectacular fall in small municipalities becomes clear.

1995-2026: evolution of participation in the first round of municipal elections depending on the size of the municipality