The scene has circulated a lot since the announcement of the results of the second round of the presidential election. It’s 7:58 p.m., Sunday April 24: the two TV screens are on, the volume has been turned up, all we have to do is wait. In a few seconds, the 200 people gathered in the Debeyre room in Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais) to follow the election night will know: who, Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen, will preside over France for the next five years? About thirty journalists are in place, ready to capture the reaction of the voters present in front of them. “I’m facing the crowd, the TVs are behind mesays Youenn Martin, journalist at The voice of the North. I hear the countdown has started, I hear ‘five, four, three’… So I start video recording with my phone.”
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When the silhouette of Emmanuel Macron appears, “There is a huge reaction, continues the journalist, based since 2017 in the mining town, often considered the showcase of the National Rally. Right in front of me, two voters, a mother and her daughter, explode with anger. The daughter sends the finger of honor to the President of the Republic, the mother launches a shower of insults. A scene which franceinfo also attended.
“I sensed that they were nervous. However, I did not expect their reaction to be so strong.”
Youenn Martin, journalist at “La Voix du Nord”at franceinfo
Youenn Martin publishes on his Twitter account the extract that lasts “about thirty seconds”. “It’s vulgar, what just happened, but at the same time it reflects the reality of what happened in Hénin Beaumont on Sunday evening”, he said. In the room of this sports complex, the tension falls quickly. It’s 8:10 p.m. and the mother behind some of the insults admits to franceinfo having had words with regard to the Head of State that she does not pronounce “never usually”. “It was disproportionate, of course, but compared to his five-year term (…), it was really up to my dissatisfaction (…). I screamed in despair, in anger, because I’m disgusted that it was still him. We had hoped that this time it would be the right one, that Marine was going to pass.
Meanwhile, the video continues to shoot, it is shared, re-shared. First 100 times, then 500 times, 1,000 times … Tuesday noon, it had already been viewed more than 6.8 million times. On social networks, Internet users let off steam. “There was everything, starts by saying Youenn Martin. But especially voters anti-Le Pen who rejoiced in the disappointment of these voters, and of the voters of the National Rally in general.
According to our information, the young woman who gave the middle finger ends up approaching the editorial staff of The voice of the North Monday morning. “She was in distress in the face of this surge of hatred, of mockery”, we are told. Youenn Martin confirms: “These are people who have been overwhelmed, to the point of asking us to remove the video. They started to be insulted on their Facebook account and social networks, people called them on their phones”.
HAS The voice of the North, the excerpt is discussed at the editorial conference. “I have a problem with contributing to online harassment, asks the journalist. They don’t deserve such outrage.” A solution is found: the mother and her daughter are now anonymized and journalist Youenn Martin has temporarily modified his Twitter account, on which the video is hosted, to make it private.
If the video has circulated a lot, it is also because it shows a completely different atmosphere. A slightly set back on the right, two teenagers seem to be welcome the re-election of Emmanuel Macron. We see them “checking” (touching their fists), all smiles. “We wanted to show that in Hénin, there are not only Lepenists”, first told the two high school students in the columns of The voice of the North. Contacted by franceinfo, Nathan, 16, confirms: “Politically, we are rather close to the ‘Rebellious’. So when we saw that the far right was not coming to power, yes, we were happy. However, we were not there to laugh at the misfortune of the voters of the RN that surrounded us.”
“I do not endorse their gesture but I understand the reasons. There is a bitterness in the mining basin, a deep feeling of abandonment. They had hope for a change.”
Nathan, 16 years oldat franceinfo
The gesture, the middle finger, the insults…, “OK, that’s not a good reaction, Nathan continues. However, the two voters do not deserve all these comments, often based on clichés and more. This class contempt is unbearable. In the evening, we were able to chat with RN voters, we told them who we were and it went very well. “Given the circumstances”, Hugo and Nathan decided to stay at home in June, during the legislative elections. As for the mother and her daughter, they now hope that “all that passes”.