the NGO “Voted” tries to motivate young people in view of the European elections

People aged 18 or 19 will vote for the very first time in the June 9 vote.

As in every election, abstention is worrying, especially among young adults. And the European elections on June 9 are no exception. For this deadline, 8% of the French electorate will be made up of first-time voters. Young people aged 18 or over can vote for the first time, although many are unsure whether to travel. To mobilize them, the NGO “A Voted”, specialized in the fight against abstention, is focusing on raising awareness.

Among 18-35 year olds, 7 out of 10 voters may not vote in the European elections according to the Ipsos poll for Radio France on May 15. Enough to alarm the NGO “Voted” at the origin of an action in front of a Parisian faculty: “Do you know what is happening on June 9? Do you plan to go and vote ? You don’t want to go vote?” ask the volunteers when faced with students who do not seem very involved. “When it’s in France, we’re a little more interested because it’s closer and we’re already not very well represented. So for Europeans, we are less interested in it, it’s not our world.” explains Maxime, 20 years old.

“We are not very well represented.”

Maxime, 20 years old

at franceinfo

Let an NGO like “Voted” come after class, “it can make us think about it, because personally, it had popped into my head”, assures Maxime. “At the end of class, it’s not the best time, we think about ourselves first, we’ve just done our exams, nuance another student. And now we can focus on what will happen later.” The two students seem to have planned to vote but do not yet know for whom. “We have two or three names anyway, the best known, they assure. This is our future, this is how we are going to live, these are things that can really change the way society will evolve.”

The NGO “Voted” is also present on Instagram. “We give you information, we make memes, we’re quite funny”, assures Clémence Pène, volunteer. This vocabulary and these codes specific to young adults are essential to his speech “because it is still the daily life of young people and even those not so young. So if we are not on these platforms to complement the field that we are already doing, we are not where the young people are.”she explains.

For Clémence Pène, the youth vote is essential. “If we don’t vote when we’re 18, it’s potentially a whole political socialization that doesn’t happen and ultimately a whole generation that could never vote. So on a demographic scale over 20 years, it’s fair catastrophic for democracy.” The NGO “A Voted” is not limited to universities, its volunteers also visit music festivals.