[FR] 2009 European elections: the game is not over yet

The results of the European elections, at least for the time being, raise more questions than answers. Even what seems certain may not be as certain as it appears, starting with the ‘inevitable abstention’ that European elections are said to be irrevocably doomed to.

It is unfortunately true that since the first election of the Parliament by universal suffrage in 1979, voter turnout has steadily declined. On 7 June, abstention rates reached nearly 57%, 2.5% higher than in 2004.¦ But this is a European average, which obviously masks many disparities: in six Member States, the abstention rate has remained more or less the same from one election to the next, and in eight others, more people voted in 2009 than in 2004. This is certainly no cause for celebration, but it does qualify the prevailing doom and gloom.