It is a major democratic meeting which will be played on June 20 and 27.
And participation will be one of the key issues of these regional and departmental elections.
In 2020, the municipal elections that took place in this context of a pandemic were marked by historic abstention.
Including the second round (more than 58%) organized in June, after two months of confinement.
A year later, if the virus is still there, vaccination at a sustained rate (with more than 24 million people having received at least one dose) has been a game-changer. And three weeks before the first round, while since May 19 the French have found shops and cinemas or invest the terraces of bars and restaurants (sometimes omitting the precautionary measures), the debate which had divided the parties on a possible postponement of the poll in September, or even in 2022, seems distant and a little forgotten.
However, will voters go to vote en masse at the end of a minimum campaign, where masks and barrier gestures have replaced meetings and the distribution of leaflets?
We can doubt it.
But the reasons for a strong abstention, if it were to be confirmed, are not only sanitary.
We were able to see this by going out to meet citizens in four regions.
In this France of cities, suburbs and villages, there are many “disillusioned” inhabitants who do not intend to speak at the polls.
However, there are many reasons to go and vote for these regional and departmental elections.
These deadlines are important and their results will have concrete consequences in our daily life and for the territories.
Île-de-France: “What do we have to gain?
"
Adil, 18, employed in a medical analysis laboratory, will not revoke his right to vote on June 20. “All the friends my age are the same. What do we have to gain? There is never anything for young people, ”he laments in the tram of the new T9 line circulating in Val-de-Marne. He cannot imagine for a single second that this equipment, which speeds up his movements, was financed, in large part, by the Île-de-France region. “I don't know this stuff. "
Vitry-sur-Seine Town Hall stop.
In this popular city in the Parisian suburbs, the abstention rate rose to 77% during the second round of municipal elections in 2020, a national record for a city of more than 1,000 inhabitants.
“It's sad,” comments Louiza, a 33-year-old Algerian, “frustrated” at not being able to submit a ballot.
Franck, 80, is not at all sure to emerge in three weeks.
"But who shows up?
Asks the ex-miller with the sailor's cap.
If he is hardly motivated, it is also because he has a grudge against the government.
"I do not understand anything with all these vaccine stories," he plague.
For Ella, a prep student who lives in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), “we all have a share of sovereignty”.
ARNAUD DUMONTIER
Erwan, 41, an engineer who “voted Macron” is also reluctant to move.
“There is no campaign to try to interest us.
What is missing is pedagogy, ”he regrets.
Sofia, a 52-year-old caregiver, is on the same page.
“We're so busy right now.
If you ask me which are my vaccinated patients, I can answer you, but the dates of the elections, that, I do not know.
"
Ouafa, an 18-year-old high school student, is in a hurry to have her first voter card stamped.
“It's a right, you have to use it,” she insists.
Ditto for Ella, a “prep” student.
“We all have a share of sovereignty.
If we abstain, we let the upper classes decide for us… ”
Bourgogne - Franche-Comté: "If we don't vote, don't complain"
The covered market place de la République in Sens (Yonne) is very quiet this Wednesday at the end of the morning. No towing session. "Oh well, are there any elections soon?" We do not see the candidates, ”emphasizes Véronique, 43, a sausage seller. She will not vote, “even if Brad Pitt were to declare himself”. "If I was offered a million euros then there, maybe", she laughs. In his eyes, the vote has no influence on his life. "If you put another in power, it won't change anything for me." In the morning when I get up, I will have the same problems, the same salary. "
However, she refuses to lament.
"If we don't vote, don't complain," she concedes, serving Jean-Paul, 72, a retired wealth management advisor.
He will mobilize the two Sundays in June, he will even be an assessor.
He fears an astronomical abstention.
"People are disillusioned, it's clear and clean," he alarmed behind his FFP2 mask covering an almost white mustache.
Alison, 33: “I don't know anything about it.
But when I was young, I voted. ”
ARNAUD DUMONTIER
At the various stalls, the countryside has little to say. “We are told about the vaccine, not the elections,” describes Alison, a flower, tomato and asparagus seller. She no longer ventures into the voting booths. " I do not know anything about it. But when I was young, I voted, ”says this 33-year-old woman. His boss, Guy, a market gardener and horticulturist, should follow suit. “I don't have time, I work 7 days a week,” whispered the sixty-year-old in the lumberjack shirt. His head is elsewhere. “When you are on your own, it's a perpetual fight, you are not helped, so there is a certain fed up. "
At the entrance to the halls, Quentin, 38, miller and brewer, sells his good bread and his Fring'Ale beer.
He is indifferent to the ballot on the horizon.
"The region does not have the hand, we are led by Europe", he fumed.
Since the 2017 presidential election, this "organic peasant", "disgusted" because "taxes are increasing", has joined the camp of abstainers.
But do not tell him above all that he lacks good citizenship!
“I feed the French with my organic products, I tell myself that I am not a bad citizen.
"
Center - Val-de-Loire: "I no longer believe in it"
Whatever the type of ballot, no contender has the favors of Aurore, who receives her first dose of vaccine in Bourges (Cher).
LP / Arnaud Dumontier
In the VIP lounges of the Palais des Sports in Bourges (Cher) transformed into a vaccine park, Denis, 52, a logistics executive, stretches out his arm for a second dose of Pfizer. Here he is immune to Covid-19 and… abstention. “This time, I'm going to vote,” he says. Last year, he boycotted the voting booth during the municipal elections for fear of the cluster. “They should have been postponed, I know an assessor who left his skin there. "For these regional, he considers the ballot" safer "in terms of health. “On the other hand, what does not change is the poor quality of the debates. I would like it to cause employment, ”he suggests.
Aurore, 43, receives her first dose. Not even hurt ! "I'm tattooed, so an injection, that doesn't bother me", smiles this administrative employee paid at the minimum wage. With her, the antidote has no side effects when it comes to voter turnout. "I no longer believe it, I will not go. “During the presidential election, she had moved. “But I had voted white in both rounds. On the Elysian scale as well as departmental and regional, no suitor has his favors. By abstaining, it also intends to sanction in its own way the management of the pandemic by the summits of the State. "The decision to re-containment was taken too late," she criticizes.
Ludovic, 39, agent Enedis, is himself "thinking" to know whether or not he will file a ballot.
A purely health decision.
"I had not voted in the municipal elections, my wife was pregnant, I was too scared," he recalls.
Jean, 70-year-old “green”, former house painter, does not ask himself any questions: he will vote, “obviously”.
“My parents lived under the dictatorship in Portugal.
It is a chance to be in a democracy, it must be seized to tip the scales.
It's too easy to say:
They're all bad!
But hey, it's in the DNA of the French to be complaining Gauls.
"
Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes: "It is not at 76 that I will register on the lists"
Suzanne, resident of Vallon-en-Sully (Allier), abdicated a long time ago. Her economic situation, in particular, turned her away from the polls. LP / Arnaud Dumontier
In Vallon-en-Sully, a village in the Allier region, a bust of Marianne rests on a pink sandstone plinth. This symbol of the Republic does not work a miracle. In the open countryside too, abstention is gaining ground. Suzanne, 76, abdicated a long time ago. “And it's not at my age that I'm going to get on the lists. She has "no regrets." “When I was little, my mom used to tell me:
Politics is a public girl
. Well, a messiah with a magic wand who would solve my problems and those of France, it's like the good Lord, it does not exist! She believes. Her economic situation has turned her away from the polls. “I have a pension of 950 euros although I worked from the age of 18.
I am disgusted ”, indignant the former driving school instructor.
To make ends meet, she still rolls up her sleeves by being a domestic worker.
Nathalie, pharmacist, does not rule out abstaining to show her "dissatisfaction".
“Last year, we should not have organized the municipal elections because of the Covid-19.
Today, this virus is still there, every day, I have positive tests, ”she warns.
Gérard Cardonel, the mayor of Saulzais-le-Potier (Cher), expects a turnout “between 50 and 60%” for the June polls.
LP / Arnaud Dumontier
Return to Center - Val-de-Loire, a few kilometers away. In Saulzais-le-Potier (Cher), a town of 506 souls which claims the title of "geographical center of France", participation in elections is always higher than the national average. But the mayor (without label) Gérard Cardonel expects it to be "not high" for the June polls, "between 50 and 60%". "People are particularly tired of differences between leaders in each party," he warns. In recent years, he has observed, in certain citizens, a distancing from democratic life. "More and more inhabitants are not registered on the electoral lists, between 5 and 10%", he is surprised.
Unconditional of the ballot boxes during the municipal and presidential elections, Karine, 51, owner of the supermarket, hesitates to give her voice for the departmental and regional. "I do not feel concerned, these institutions are far from me, I have the impression that my vote is not useful, that the rural world is forgotten", she feels. Bruno, 59, at the helm of the tobacco-newspaper bar, will be faithful to the meeting. Since 1981, he has not missed any poll. “Even when you don't agree, you have to vote. As in Belgium, I would not be against it becoming compulsory. And if we are not satisfied with someone, we choose the other. "