No customer mentioned the elections. Their main concern is the swimming pool, pétanque and aperitif. When you go to the campsite, you leave your problems at home,”
warns Franck Couderc, director of the Flots bleus campsite, at the foot of the Pilat dune, in La Teste-de-Buch (Gironde).
The film Camping filmed here in the early 2000s, has left its mark. On the pétanque pitch, Florence, a healthcare assistant in Oise, knows the line by heart: My name is Patrick Chirac, so what? Why should I be the one changing my name?
The evening’s opponents, David and Nathalie, originally from Pas-de-Calais, are collapsed with laughter. Their dog, a black and white Bully, named Dubai, like the Emirati capital. The breeder had named him that, so we left his name…
Nathalie would have preferred a surname that sounds more French, but she still likes it. A 55-year-old home help, she admits through gritted teeth that she voted RN.
Read also. Find all the results of the first round of the 2024 legislative elections
Her husband, David, 54, a small, nervous man, is not as calm. When he talks politics, he trembles. Just talking about it makes me angry.
“You’re not going to curse us?”
When he discovered that Florence, his opponent of the evening, was voting for the New Popular Front, he pulled himself together: We’re not going to ask who we’re voting for before starting a game of pétanque.
His partner is still worried: Tomorrow, when you meet us, you won’t curse us?
José, Florence’s husband, comfortable in his Spanish team jersey, reassures her. He does not hide his origins or his political opinions.
I don’t have French nationality, but if I could have voted, I would have done like you.
Ball in hand, he rushes. Diamond. Damn! I kicked my wife’s ass. Now that proves I’m angry!
Florence bounces back: We’re going to focus a little.
Nice shot. She takes the point.
On the nearby sand, behind the oak sleeper, Isabelle and Jauffrey, 56 and 52 years old, loaded with packaging bearing the logo of an ESAT in the Valenciennes region (North), change the subject. The Euro football championship is more interesting than politics. We meet at the restaurant before the match to drink a Coke,”
Isabelle asks. A Zero, I hope?
Jauffrey had prepared his joke: France had won 1-0 against Belgium in the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup.
“Camping is a family, a bit like the PS”
The time for the results is approaching. Patrick Maury, 63, as red as his socks, is waiting for a message from the Socialist Party of Périgueux. A member for forty-three years in a constituency that has almost always voted left-wing, he has entrusted his vote to the section president. This early retiree from the Dordogne departmental council has never missed an election. He is usually an assessor. Camping is a family, a bit like the PS”,
he jokes. For the second round, he promises, he will return to the village: he must run the polling station. Next year, only, Patrick will be retired. I’m going to retire here. I’ll finally be on vacation,”
he breathes.
Jauffrey defines himself more blue-white-red”,
like his sandals and his balls “made in France”. He was “tempted” by the RN vote. We would have had time to make the proxy, but we are fed up with politics. The RN is no better than anyone else. Whether it is them or someone else, we will have to get back to work,”
he concludes. In the end, they went on vacation without voting. Isabelle doesn’t feel guilty. They didn’t want to dissolve the Assembly, as far as I know?
