“I don’t believe in Santa Claus anymore”

Sub-prefecture of Haute-Marne with ramparts overlooking the surrounding countryside, Langres has always voted, sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right. But we are abstaining from it more and more: 20% in the first round of the presidential election in 2007, 24% in 2012, 28% in 2017. And even 71% in the regional elections last year, in a particular health context. This is, each time, a few points above the national average.

>> GREAT MAINTENANCE. Is the 2022 presidential election threatened by the record abstention that affects the other elections?

10:30 a.m., Lidl car park. William is about to inflate this abstention statistic a little. This time it’s decided, he won’t vote anymore. Trolley still empty in the lobby of the Lidl supermarket, the pensioner loses his temper as soon as the upcoming presidential election is mentioned.

“The contestants don’t deserve me wasting a day fishing for them.”

William, a retired worker

at franceinfo

Until he was 66, the former worker had always voted. But this year, “It’s over”. The pretenders to the Élysée? “All liars!he exclaims. They make promises they never kept when they were in government. I don’t believe in Santa Claus anymore”. Sack of potatoes slipped into the trolley, William pours out his disillusions on the left, where his ideas are. “Mitterrand, Holland, all the same! Once they put their finger in the jam jar, it’s over.“ Only “Arlette” (Laguiller, six times Lutte Ouvrière candidate, between 1974 and 2007) would still find favor in his eyes, “but the poor thing is not even anymore [en lice]”. So the retiree is content “to wait for his check at the end of the month and live in peace”. He assumes his electoral resignation: “It’s up to the young people to fight, not up to us”.

A withdrawal into oneself also displayed by Murielle, about to take the wheel of her small car. A former local elected official, she has not taken part in national elections for about twenty years. And only vote in municipal elections, “closer, where there is more interaction”. Abstention is in his eyes the extension of a growing individualism. “We no longer pay attention to what is happening around usshe observes, apart from ecology. But that does not make him want to vote for a candidate sensitive to the environment. “I take care of myself”, justifies the forties, “the others will take care of France in my place”.

Relying on others is not to the taste of Félicien, a father. He loads into his trunk “four races that cost an arm”, too expensive for his 1,500 euros salary. But Félicien will not vote for a cantor of purchasing power, that would not change “not much”. The thirty-something considers without blinking that we are “in dictatorship”, the health crisis has, according to him, shown. And he does not seem ready to slip a Marine Le Pen bulletin into the ballot box again, as in 2012 and 2017. “She has changed”, he regrets.

12:30 p.m. Le Foy brasserie, in the heart of the old town. It is another disappointed with the Marine Le Pen vote, which we find seated. Among the regulars, glass of white wine on the counter, abstainers are rarer than in the shopping area. Except Roxane who had voted once for the RN candidate. “I wanted to change things, because there are too many social rights in France”, exposes the young woman. After having worked for six years with HLM offices, she can’t stand being “take advantage of the system”. “But there is a 10% chance that Le Pen will passshe laments. And voting, when you know it will never pass, it’s a waste of time”. So the 30-year-old, single mother, turned to other forms of mobilization. She participated in the beginning of the movement of “yellow vests” and plans to create an association against domestic violence. “I build my life for me and my sonshe continues, I’m not counting on the French state for that”.

Two tables behind, Enzo is having lunch with some friends. At 23, he has never slipped a ballot into a ballot box. And does not intend to start in two months. Not keen, not interested. “Maybe I will vote one dayadvances the young interim garbage collector, when I have matured”.

3:15 p.m., Epide integration center. “something old” that’s kind of how Valentin sees voting. The young man is one of the 83 residents of the Establishment for integration into employment (Epide) in Langres, housed in a former barracks. Here, he is accompanied in his project, “his dream” : become a policeman. Despite his citizenship education classes, he does not think of going to vote, without totally excluding it. He doesn’t really see the point of it.

4 p.m., nursing home. What are the ferments of all these abstentions? A priori, not the economic slump. At the foot of Langres, industries are recruiting. The unemployment rate is low, 5.5%. But the city is depopulated, losing institutions and public services. In ten years, the district court has migrated. The last soldiers have left. The maternity ward has closed. In the waiting room of the nursing home also installed in former army buildings, Noémie deplores the lack of general practitioners, three retirees, not replaced. She once had to drive her daughter to the emergency room because there were no available appointments. But according to this young economic development facilitator, what turned her away from the polls was the behavior of elected officials. Especially those she meets in her work. “There is always a personal interest behind”, she stings, citing the recent disputed purchase of a DS at 78,000 euros as a company car for the president of the Haute-Marne departmental council. Before this “disgust, this fed up”Noémie had tried to vote, once, ten years ago.

“For me, the last time was in 1968, for General de Gaulle”, remembers Bernadette, sitting in the same waiting room. The retired worker confesses to having had for the following ballots “lazy, because Sunday is the day I stay at home”.