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In France, representatives of the presidential party are regularly sanctioned during regional elections. The practice of this sanction vote, a punitive vote and a manifestation of dissatisfaction with the politicians in power, was particularly widespread during the first round of elections on June 20, 2021. The parties supported by the presidential majority (LREM or MoDem), eliminated in Hauts-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and Occitanie in the first round, barely won *** percent of the vote in the other regions. More than twice as low as that achieved by the Parti Socialiste under the presidency of François Hollande in 2015, and that of the right under the five-year term of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2010, this is the lowest score ever recorded for a presidential party during regional elections.

Weak performance of the presidential majority benefiting outgoing presidents

On the evening of the second round, Stanislas Guerini, LREM's delegate general, described the election results as a "disappointment for the presidential majority". The 2021 election has indeed left the political map unchanged, and, after a hectic election campaign, all outgoing regional presidents were re-elected, perpetuating the traditional left-right divide.
If the party created by Emmanuel Macron originally considered itself to be outside this divide, for the French, it remains ideologically close to the Les Républicains (ex UMP) party; even among Macron voters. Yet, the party is new, clearly less well established locally than older political groups, and lacks a well-known figure other than its leader, which has not worked in its favor.
Moreover, while the youth of the LREM movement and its lack of regional anchoring are important elements in understanding these results, the abstention rate is also a factor to be considered. In the first round, only *** in French people went to the polls, and the fewest who did not were the older generations. Politically socialized at a time when voting was seen as a duty, nearly half of the over-65s cast their vote. They were also the most likely to support traditional parties.
The will to avoid an election between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen in 2022 may also explain these results.

Implications for the 2022 presidential elections?

More than a third of the French believed that Macron wanted to use these elections for his own presidential campaign. The France tour, which Macron began in early June, seems to indicate that the president, while stating that he wants to "take the pulse of the country," has already entered the campaign trail. This is not really new, however, insofar as regional elections are often seen as intermediate ones, serving as an obstacle for the majority to overcome, as a demonstration of credibility for the far right, or as a test of the left's ability to unite. The territorial reforms redrawing the map and the competences of the regions seem to have changed nothing. The importance of the security issue (a national rather than regional competence) in the debates seems to show that if the election is local, the stakes of the 2021 vote were national.
Will the failures of the presidential party weigh in Emmanuel Macron's re-election? This will probably be the case, since local elected officials are the relays of opinion. Moreover, with the record abstention rate in the first round and the inability of the majority to win any region, the French public considers Macron's score in the regional elections as a personal failure, and expect a change of policy as well as a reshuffle.
Yet, the president's popularity hardly seems to be affected: his rating after the elections is higher than that of his predecessors at the same time of their mandate, which can be an encouraging sign less than a year before the elections.