for more, i'm joined by cnn european affairs commentator dominick thomas, speaking with us from paris polls will be open in a few hours. what do we expect in terms of turnout in this election? one of the big issues has been ap apathy, how engaged voters are. >> yes, michael. and i think based on the last three election cycles, what we've seen is voter turnout has actually dropped off between the two roundrounds. based on what happened in the first round, i expect 25% or more of french people to actually not even bother going to the ballot boxes. and this apathy is being driven by a fairly widespread sentiment of the kind of lack of representation. this is a country that's gone through some major political changes over the last decade or so, the mainstream parties no longer do very well. it's a winner take all system and it's compounded by the fact that as much as french voters are accustomed of voting against a candidate in the runoff stages, the fact that a le pen family member has been on the ballot three of the last five times and they've simply been asked to vote against that far