France, presidential election today:

Turnout at 12:00 CEST

…
2007: 31.2%
2012: 28.3%
2017: 28.5%
2022: 25.5% (-3)

Source: Ministry of the Interior

More: https://t.co/oL97q6lO3I pic.twitter.com/wCn9HLAfI3

— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) April 10, 2022

???? Taux de participation à 12h00 en France métropolitaine : 25,5%, en baisse de 3 points par rapport à 2017. #electionpresidentielle2022 pic.twitter.com/HT8qVR4Ci1

— mathieu gallard (@mathieugallard) April 10, 2022

???? Une carte @NspPolls de l'évolution de la participation à 12h00 entre 2017 et 2022. Pas très facile à interpréter, mais deux bastions du RN, le Pas-de-Calais (34,4% pour Le Pen en 2017) et le Vaucluse (30,5%), se sont davantage mobilisés. pic.twitter.com/UESfPRVPO9

— mathieu gallard (@mathieugallard) April 10, 2022

My expectation for today has been the lower the turnout the more damaging it would be for Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon whilst being great for Marine Le Pen. So the 12pm CST release from the Ministère de l’Intérieur was useful to know, with turnout 3% lower at the equivalent stage in 2017.

The tweets from Mathieu Gallard do add an important caveat, the 12pm figure isn’t usually indicative of the final turnout figure. However based on the 12pm figure, Marine Le Pen’s supporters appear more mobilised based on his third tweet.

The next update from the Ministère de l’Intérieur is at 5pm CST (4pm BST). If Le Pen wins the first round then I’d expect turnout and tactical voters to increase in the second round and that should be good news for Macron v. Le Pen, if they make it to the second round.

TSE