Will the French, and especially young people, vote on April 10? Less than two months before the first round of the presidential election, it is not won. Only 49% of young people are indeed certain to go to the voting booths for the moment, according to our barometer #MoiJeune2022 OpinionWay – 20 minutes – West France – Journals of the Loire*. And this figure drops to 44% among 18-22 year olds. However, “having a voice that counts as much as anyone else’s is still a strong feeling when you come out of adolescence”, pleads David, who was able to vote for the first time during of the 2007 presidential election. Like all first times, the first vote can leave a lasting impression. We therefore asked our Internet users to share their memories with us.
“I had mistakenly taken my mother’s voter card and I was turned away. Shame,” Anita laughs yellow. It must be said that electing a representative of the nation is a little more codified than a basket that passes between the tables for the election of class delegates. So when facing the assessors for the first time, one can feel very small. “Very intimidated, I didn’t know what to do. Two older people had explained everything to me,” recalls Jean-Claude, 74. Arthur, he was “afraid of silly things: the color of the pen I had to use to sign off, the way I had to fold my ballot to fit into the tiny envelope, whether I should put my ballot on the front slot that the assessor presses to make it fall or if I had to wait for him to open the slot to put in my ballot. »
“Going into battle, ballot in hand”
But what this first-time voter of 2017 retains above all is a feeling of “pride” and the chance of having been able to “inaugurate [son] civic duty and honoring democracy by electing the person who will be at the top”. The words are strong, and we understand why when the young man specifies that he had actively participated in the campaign. But without being an activist, you can believe in a candidate enough to have “the feeling of going to fight, the ballot in hand”, like Doune, who voted for the first time in 2012.
Chance of the years of birth, some first times correspond to particularly significant elections in our political history. For these first-time voters, a small feeling of “I was there” is then added. Yves, 79, who says he is “still so proud to have voted for General de Gaulle when he was 21 in 1965, when for the first time the president was elected by the people”. [Avant la réforme constitutionnelle de 1962, le président de la République était élu par un collège de grands électeurs.] Jean-Michel sees himself again with emotion participating in the victory of François Mitterrand in 1981. The first president on the left and “joy for all workers”.
“Forty-one years later, I still haven’t digested”
This election, on the other hand, left a bitter taste in Mireille, who was 24 years old in 1981. Right-wing electrician, she tried to look good with her husband in the midst of the inhabitants gathered in the bar of her small village of the Dome. “People wanted to celebrate and here we are, with our daughter, for a meal in an inn. We had to remain discreet about our political opinions throughout dinner. And at the time of the addition, it was necessary to divide between the number of people, including our daughter, who obviously had not consumed alcohol. Forty-one years later, I still haven’t digested either Mitterrand’s election or the hefty addition. ” So much memories !
* Barometer #MeYoung 2022 OpinionWay – 20 Minutes – West France – Journals of the Loire carried out from January 28 to February 4 on a sample of 1191 people representative of the French population aged 18 to 30 according to the quota method.