Until the end of the campaign for the first round of the 2022 presidential election, franceinfo gives you the floor: from Monday April 4 to Friday April 8, we listen to your expectations, your voting intentions, your hopes or your frustrations. Stage of the day: Verdun, in the Meuse.
Just at the entrance to Hayange (Moselle), the large steelworks Saarstahlthis employs more than 400 people. It is the only rail production site in France. Nicolas, 35, ends his day. Three days before the first round of the presidential election, he says he intends to vote: “I’m not sure who yet. Maybe I’ll vote blank.” In this working-class city of 16,000 inhabitants, abstention had reached more than 33% in the second round in 2017.
>> Presidential 2022: blank vote, of conviction or to “block”… In Verdun, everyone has a good reason to vote
What does Nicolas hope for, five years later? “Already more purchasing power, we, the poor French people who are struggling. I have two children, a wife, with two salaries, we are not doing well, we are always in the red. But it is important to vote. You cannot, after bringing back your strawberry, say ‘Ah, this president, he is nimp'” The membership vote, Nicolas no longer believes in it.
In a bar near the factory, a resident of Hayange, drawn features, prefers to remain anonymous. But she confides that at 65 she works “again” as a housekeeper in private homes: “I have a part of RSA because I don’t work every day, and the APL [aide personnalisée au logement] but that’s all. With aid, I have 600 euros and some, not even 650 euros per month. As there are years where I missed, I do not have my full retirement, I would have the minimum. So, I still have to work, maybe 67.”
“The head is fine, but the body, at some point, it no longer follows”, continues the sexagenarian who suffers in particular from osteoarthritis. The extension of retirement to 65, as proposed by Emmanuel Macron and Valérie Pécresse, worries him.
“If we, they make us work until the age of 67, the young people, they don’t already have a job, they won’t find any more.”
A resident of Hayangeat franceinfo
This cleaning lady is not sure to come to the polling station on Sunday April 10: “Maybe the second round? I don’t know. I’m disgusted with politics. I can’t do it anymore.” And if she could address the candidates directly, what would she ask of them? “Let them already give us a correct minimum wage”, respond–her, without hesitation this time.
Do we talk a lot of politics in this bar? “No, because we get angry. These are subjects not to be talked about”replies Michel, the boss, who claims to have the intention of going to vote.