InvestigationBehind the record abstention in recent years looms the fear of depoliticization of the youngest. However, demonstrations, engagement, use of social networks are all facets of a new expression.
“If young people are not always right, the society which ignores them and which strikes them is always wrong”, thundered, in his speech of May 8, 1968, François Mitterrand, yet little appreciated by student protesters who had then launched the most important French social movement of the end of the XXe century. This sentence must be remembered.
Today, we do not hesitate to hit, this time in a figurative sense, on young people, to denigrate them, to question them, first and foremost on their citizenship. Carelessness, indifference, “I-don’t care”, expressions to castigate an apparent disinterest of youth for politics are not lacking, often taking the features of a generational criticism. And, it must be said, the figures are there to support this theory.
Abstention is by far the favorite candidate of young people in the elections. And this, at all the electoral deadlines, with however marked differences. In the 2017 presidential election, it was only 34% in the second round among 18-24 year olds (40% among 25-34 year olds), according to an Ipsos / Sopra Steria poll.
In the legislative elections, abstention passes to 74% in the second round, still for 18-24 year olds (70% for 25-34 year olds). On March 3, 2020, in a particular context of health crisis, the 18-24 age group is 72% not to take the way to the polls for the second municipal tour. Latest to date, the departmental and regional elections in June experienced a historic peak as two out of three French people deserted the ballot box, and 18-24 year olds were not left out with 87% of abstainers in the first round.
It is still more than the national average. And things are not improving: over-abstention among young people is increasing. But do young people lose interest in public affairs for all that? Has the youth metamorphosed since May 68 and the student revolts which had made the political leaders of the time shudder?
The “skeptical gaze” of the oldest
Anne Muxel, director of research in sociology and political science at the CNRS, author in particular ofHave 20 years in politics. Children of disenchantment (Seuil, 2010), is totally against the idea of depoliticizing young people: “The younger generations still suffer from a skeptical and dubious look on the part of the older generations, who think that they can only do less well, be less committed. ”
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