VIDEO. Nina Fleury-Panel, sociology student, challenges Élisabeth Borne on young people and politics

His speech quickly went viral. Wednesday evening, on the occasion of the Matignon Youth Meetings, Nina Fleury-Panel, a sociology student, explained to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, the “social contempt” which the political class and the television channels had shown towards the young people who had abstained from voting in the presidential and legislative elections. “Today, we have plenty of tools to understand national programs. To say that we don’t vote because we don’t understand national problems is just to say that we are incapable of seeking information. It’s just also getting rid of the problem, it’s looking down on young people. This is not a satisfactory answer”, she explains.

Listen to young people and their needs

By questioning the Prime Minister, Nina Fleury-Panel wanted Elisabeth Borne to hear the voice of all young people. For her, the problem is that there is no project for them. She points out that out of all the deputies in the National Assembly, only 20 are under 30 years old. “You don’t have to be young to make laws that affect young people, but you have to listen deeply to young people and listen to their needs.”. This political abandonment and the absence of listening would therefore be factors that would have pushed young people to abstain during the votes, because no politician represented them.

Nina Fleury-Panel explains that going to the voting booths could be a solution if “young people are listened to behind”. “When the programs revolve around retirement and not student life, not young workers, we also wonder where we are, we, in the political sphere, and that’s also what leads us not to vote.”. In her interview, the student evokes different issues to be dealt with according to age groups: giving keys to enable middle school students to become future citizens, obtaining better listening for high school students, especially for their orientation. Finally, establishing a study of student precariousness and professional integration seems essential to him: “We will obviously work longer, so we might as well have our place”.