In Rennes, “we have all assimilated barrier gestures” in the polling stations
At the entrance of the Liberté school, this afternoon, in the city center of Rennes, an assessor announced the color: “It is quiet. Very calm”, said the young man, who was patient standing near a dispenser of hydroalcoholic gel. In fact, there was no crowd. At the 411 office, around noon, only 90 ballots had been dropped in the ballot box. During the first round, on March 15, approximately 230 voters had presented themselves at this same office at 1:30 pm Caroline Machon, president of said office, made a similar observation: “The flow of voters is not constant, unlike the first round, where we barely had time to bow our heads between two voters. ”
This low attendance partly explains, according to Ms. Machon, the difference in“ambiance” with the first round. “In the first round, we felt a certain tension, nervousness among the voters. Both because there were more people, I think, and then because the context was a little surreal: there had been Macron’s speech the previous Thursday [au cours duquel le président de la République avait notamment annoncé la fermeture des crèches, des établissements scolaires et des universités à compter du lundi 16 mars, tout en maintenant le déroulement du premier tour des élections municipales] and the evening before, the announcement of the closing of bars and restaurants… ” She adds that, on that day, some voters were somewhat exasperated: “We had reflections on hygiene, the lack of measures or the excess of measures… We felt that everyone wanted to do well, but each had their truth of the moment… ”
Three months (including eight weeks of confinement) later, the situation seems very different. “It is going very well, adds Ms. Machon. We feel that certain practices have entered the customs, unlike the first round where there was no fluidity. We have all assimilated barrier gestures… ” And to mention, moreover, the strengthening of sanitary measures between the first and the second round: passage from four to two voting booths per office, limitation of the number of voters present at the same time in each office (three people maximum)… This does not seem, at this stage, to have encouraged the abstainers to move. At 12 o’clock, according to the prefecture, the participation rate in Ille-et-Vilaine was 8.18%, against 17.52% in the second round in 2014 and 15.80% in the first round last March.
By our journalist Nicolas Legendre
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