If there were a party of those who do not vote, this party would be the one with the most militants in France, and the most popular among young people.
In the first round of the French legislative elections, on June 12, 52.5% of French people with the right to vote abstained: 25.7 million voters in total.
Abstention was 75% among voters between 18 and 24 years old, according to the Ifop demographic institute.
This Sunday, in the second round, the French will elect the 577 deputies of the National Assembly and, according to polls, the number of those who will stay at home could be even higher.
Whoever wins, there is already a winner: the Abstention Party.
If this imaginary Abstention Party had an electoral fiefdom, it would be the department or province of Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest in France and the one with the largest population of immigrant origin.
In Seine-Saint-Denis, in the northern outskirts or
banlieue
of Paris, abstention rose last Sunday to 61.1%.
There are places, in Saint-Saint-Denis, where the percentage was even higher.
In Bondy, for example, where soccer player Kylian Mbappé grew up and learned to kick the ball.
Abstention in Bondy was 66.7%.
And on Friday evening, when there were hours left for the closing of the second round campaign, a race against time was waged in this city of 52,000 inhabitants to convince the skeptics that, this time, it is time to exercise the right to choose who will represent them for the next five years.
"I don't vote.
They don't know me and I don't know them.
Frankly, I don't care.
I'm not going to vote for something that's going to disappoint me later.
I make my life.
If prices go up, I'll try to make more money.
If they go down, then better.
The speaker is a 20-year-old red-haired boy, with a suburban accent, and without any desire to appear in the photos or to have his name mentioned, unlike the three friends - Aymen, Djordjo and Ivan - who chat on the sidewalk before the hamburger restaurant Big M. Ivan, who wears a shirt of the Serbian national team, the country of his parents, works on the premises and comes and goes according to the influx of customers.
Friday Night Fever in Bondy.
Some days they go down to Paris;
others stay at 93, as the Seine-Saint-Denis department is known by its postal code.
On the street, tuned cars, dirt bikes lifting wheels.
The heat wave hits hard, a hundred meters from the A3 motorway marks the limit of Bondy, a gigantic Mbappé, drawn on the side of a building, dominates the panorama.
Aymen and Ivan say that they will go to the polls on Sunday.
Djordjo, who works as a firefighter, did not, although in April he voted in the first round of the presidential election.
His candidate, Mélenchon, did not go to the second round, and now he concludes: “I am no longer interested”.
"Have you never voted?"
Not even in the presidential elections?
Mehmet Ozguner - who asks - is a substitute candidate in the 9th constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis for the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (NUPES), and has approached the red-haired boy in an attempt, possibly the last, to persuade a abstainer, or at least listen to their reasons.
Ozguner's parents are Kurdish from southern Turkey.
They arrived in France in the nineties.
He is the oldest of three brothers, the first to have studied at the university and the first to not only vote, but also to be involved in the electoral process.
He is 22 years old.
Together with his friends Emma, Yvana, Maxence and Chems —like him, all from Bondy—, he distributes electoral pamphlets, puts up posters and visits neighborhoods to shake his fellow citizens out of apathy.
All five study, or are finishing their studies, and work or look for work.
From left, Maxence, Mehmet, Emma, Chems and Yvana.
All these young people are engaged in politics.
Mehmet is a substitute candidate for the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (NUPES) and his friends are supporters of the progressive alliance. Levy Yann (Yann Levy)
Mehmet Ozguner's group is an exception in Bondy, a member of the small minority of young people who are not only voters but, in his case, aware.
The group of Aymen, Ivan, Djordjo and the redhead belongs to another France, the majority: of these four, some vote and others do not, but politics has become something distant for them.
The second round of the legislative elections will be decided largely by voters like these young people from Bondy or from other towns, cities and neighborhoods in France: the abstentionists.
In the first round, the two most voted forces were the NUPES of veteran Eurosceptic and anti-capitalist politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and Ensemble, the candidacy of President Emmanuel Macron.
The extreme right was third: Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN).
The polls predict that Ensemble, now with an absolute majority in the National Assembly, will continue to be the group with the most deputies, followed by NUPES.
Macron or Mélenchon
The question is whether the macronistas will obtain an absolute majority: a minimum of 289 deputies, half plus one of the total number of seats.
Or if they will have to settle for a relative majority that would force Macron to agree on the laws with other forces.
What is at stake - what the abstentionists can decide - are the limits to the president's power.
The problem with the Mélenchonists is that a part of their electorate —the young and the working classes in suburban cities like Bondy— is the one that does not vote.
The Ensemble voter —retirees and people with a higher level of education and income— is the one who mobilizes the most.
Mélenchon, if he wants to fulfill his goal of having a parliamentary majority and force Macron to appoint him prime minister, he must mobilize millions of abstentionists.
“If turnout drops even further from the first round, it should benefit Macron.
But if it goes up, the balance will change, ”explains Vincent Martigny, professor of political science, on a terrace in Paris.
"Everything will depend on where the shock comes from: either Macron's voters move to save the president, or the left mobilizes young people."
From one end of France to the other, the candidates and militants of NUPES have embarked on an operation to seduce these citizens, those who can bring them closer to victory.
Or, at least, complicate things for Macron in his second five-year term, recently released after winning the presidential elections.
Explained this week before speaking at a rally in Besançon, in the west of the country, the Mélenchonist candidate Sévérine Véziès: "The decisive thing in this second round will be the mobilization of the abstentionists and the voters of the National Rally: there is in this electorate people who totally reject Emmanuel Macron, and also people who suffer from liberal policies and to whom we can provide answers”.
Mehmet Ozguner, young candidate for the NUPES.
70% of those under 30 abstained during the first round of legislative elections in France.
In Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, young people explain to us.
Mehmet Ozguner, young candidate suppléant aux legislative elections pour la Nupes.
70% des moins de 30 ans se sont abstenus lors du premier tour des legislative elections en France.
To Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, des jeunes nous expliquent. Levy Yann (Yann Levy)
Yvana, young student, she's living in Bondy and militates at NUPES.
70% of those under 30 abstained during the first round of legislative elections in France.
In Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, young people explain to us.
Yvana, student inhabitant of Bondy et militant impliquee dans la Nupes.
70% des moins de 30 ans se sont abstenus lors du premier tour des legislative elections en France.
To Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, des jeunes nous expliquent. Levy Yann (Yann Levy)
Yvana, young student, she's living in Bondy and militates at NUPES.
70% of those under 30 abstained during the first round of legislative elections in France.
In Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, young people explain to us.
Yvana, student inhabitant of Bondy et militant impliquee dans la Nupes.
70% des moins de 30 ans se sont abstenus lors du premier tour des legislative elections en France.
To Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, des jeunes nous expliquent. Levy Yann (Yann Levy)
Maxence is a student.
He's living in Bondy and militates at NUPES.
70% of those under 30 abstained during the first round of legislative elections in France.
In Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, young people explain to us.
Maxence, etudiant inhabitant Bondy et militant implique dans la Nupes.
70% des moins de 30 ans se sont abstenus lors du premier tour des legislative elections en France.
To Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, des jeunes nous expliquent. Levy Yann (Yann Levy)
Chems, young student in medicine.
He's living in Bondy and militates at NUPES.
70% of those under 30 abstained during the first round of legislative elections in France.
In Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, young people explain to us.
Chems, jeune etudiant en medecine inhabitant Bondy et militant implique dans la Nupes.
70% des moins de 30 ans se sont abstenus lors du premier tour des legislative elections en France.
To Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, des jeunes nous expliquent. Levy Yann (Yann Levy)
Chems, Yvana and Maxence have a discuss about strategy from the last evening of the legislative campaign.
70% of those under 30 abstained during the first round of legislative elections in France.
In Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, young people explain to us.
Chems, Yvana and Maxence on a discussion on the last soiree of the campaign for legislative elections.
70% des moins de 30 ans se sont abstenus lors du premier tour des legislative elections en France.
To Bondy, in Sene-Saint-Denis, des jeunes nous expliquent. Levy Yann (Yann Levy)
Véziès admits that “the young electorate is not the easiest to mobilize”.
"If I had the solution...", he sighs.
“You have to explain to them that their future is in their hands.
The urgency of the weather will affect them.
Retirement at 65, as Macron wants, will affect them, not retirees today.
Regarding disaffection, Véziès points out: “There are young people who feel disillusioned because they are not offered a future.
And there are also young people who mobilized in the first round of the presidential election and felt disappointed.”
Abstention was high in the presidential elections, the highest since 1969, but it was less than 30%.
Nothing to do with 52.5% of these legislative ones, 65% of the 2021 regional ones or 58.4% of the 2020 municipal ones. “I don't think abstention is endemic in all elections, because in the presidential [turnout] is still high,” says political scientist Martigny.
"The presidential election is still very legitimate for the French, but it has cannibalized the rest of the elections, and this is a problem."
Martigny denies, contrary to appearances, that young people have disconnected from politics.
"No way," he replies.
"I am 45 years old, Macron's age, and my generation was less politicized than the current one, which is hyper-politicized around two issues: the environment and equality between men and women and gender."
And he adds: “On the other hand, partisan issues do not interest them: they consider that traditional politics does not respond to the challenges they face.”
Mehmet Ozguner, the substitute candidate in the
banlieue
of Bondy, corroborates this: “In the popular neighborhoods, young people are committed.
We saw it at the beginning of covid.
It was the young people who organized themselves to help people in need.”
But it is not easy to reach these young people to vote, especially in the suburbs.
"We must avoid despising them, judging them," reflects the candidate Ozguner, who in the late afternoon met with his friends in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento.
There are children running around and playing soccer, grandparents taking the fresh air, veiled women and baby strollers.
And five 20-somethings talking about politics.
“What I reproach militants of a certain age”, he adds, “is that they come to give lessons”.
"Do you mean our field?" Yvana interrupts him, who participates in the campaign along with other friends from the neighborhood.
"To all the camps," Mehmet replies.
"There is also a problem of representation," Emma points out, referring to the scarcity of young candidates and those from working-class neighborhoods.
Chems, a medical student, adds:
"In popular neighborhoods there are no models to base oneself on and say: 'He is an example, I would like to be like him'."
Yvana closes the debate: “In the parties there is also a problem of structural racism.
They call you to distribute leaflets and to join the military, but when it comes to being named a candidate...”
Discrimination
It's time to put up the last posters and put the remaining brochures in the mailboxes, before campaigning is prohibited at midnight.
Meanwhile, the guys from the Big M hamburger restaurant explain that sometimes, when they leave Seine-Saint-Denis, other young people look at them with misgivings because of the reputation of these neighborhoods.
Or they recount police abuses that they or friends have suffered.
Or how difficult it is to be 20 years old, be from Bondy and imagine a decent future.
When asked about their concerns, the answers are not so different from other young people.
Aymen: “Studies and aid for students”.
Djordjo: “The price of diesel: I travel by motorcycle”.
Ivan: “Ecology”.
The fourth friend, the red-haired one —the one who admits that he has never voted nor does he intend to vote, the one who does not want to give his name or be photographed— jokes when asked about his profession: “I take advantage of the opportunities it gives me life".
At 9:35 p.m., the destinies of the two groups, the friends of the substitute candidate Mehmet Ozguner and the burger joint, intersect on the sidewalk of Big M and under the figure of the giant Mbappé painted on the building next door.
The redhead tells the candidate that he will not vote, the candidate tells him about Mélenchon's program —the rise in the minimum wage to 1,500 euros and other measures— and the abstainer replies:
"He promises too much."
If it's so easy, why doesn't everyone do it?
The candidate Ozguner answers:
—If Mélenchon applies only 5% of his program, there will be people who will raise their heads.
That said, I'm like you, I'm suspicious.
We had Nicolas Sarkozy, the Socialist Party.
They promised, they promised, they promised.
But I think that, despite everything, you have to have one foot inside, you have to organize.
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