With the French presidential election of 2022 now over, a look across the Atlantic is like looking into the mirror. We see a country torn apart, led by a centrist president who’s barely popular who managed to beat out his populist rival. We see a president uneasy about the upcoming legislative elections and what they mean for implementing any coherent policies. We wonder if this president will be able to stitch the country back together, let alone heal the economy, put Covid behind us for good, confront Russia without starting a world war, provide leadership among allies, and still hold up the nation as a beaming example of democracy. It’s a tall order. Here’s how the numbers played out in French-American comparison.

Emmanuel Macron won the second round of the 2022 presidential election with 58.5% of votes, becoming the first French president in twenty years to be re-elected to a second (and final) five-year term. Far-right rival Marine Le Pen struck out in her third attempt at the presidency, but with a historic high of 41.5% of votes. Left-wing Jean-Luc Mélenchon was just behind Le Pen after elimination in the first round, leaving many pollsters wondering how his voters would go. Though enough voters turned out for Macron, the overall abstention rate was still high at 28%. Of those who still voted, about 8% cast blank or invalid votes (1).

In the 2020 American presidential election, Joe Biden won the popular vote with 51.3% and 306 electoral votes. Biden won by both measures, unlike George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016, who lost the popular vote but won the electoral college. In 2020, Trump won 46.9% of the popular vote and 232 electoral votes(2). 67% of Americans turned out to vote (3).

The similarities between France and the United States are striking: just about two-thirds of voters in France and the United States voted in their most recent presidential elections. Yet both countries are sorely pulling apart at the seams.

Some in the French media even compared this election in France to the American presidential election of 2020. There is more than a kernel of truth to this. Urban, educated, and wealthier people tended to vote for Macron/Biden whereas rural, manual laborers, and the poorer tended to vote Trump/Le Pen. (Note that data on race is technically not collected in France, though by reasonable estimates, those identifying as white tended to favor Trump/Le Pen.) The demographic divide is real, both in France and in the United States. And it’s looking a lot like a crack in the mirror.

1 https://www.resultats-elections.interieur.gouv.fr/presidentielle-2022/FE.html

2 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnout-in-presidential-elections

3 https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/record-high-turnout-in-2020-general-election.html