The shock then the start. In Aubenas-les-Alpes (Alpes de Haute-Provence), this Sunday June 9, Barbara, 35 years old, like millions of French people, has just taken a “slap” : “We saw the RN results coming, but not the dissolution! There, it’s shock, fear. Suddenly, we understand that all the dams have burst.“This specialist educator immediately creates a WhatsApp group where she brings together friends, neighbors and acquaintances.”I immediately suggested a meal at my place, but not for nice aperitif speeches: so that we could get down to something concrete.“
Fight against “the sticky feeling of the inevitable”
What can be done to have an impact in this express campaign that is breaking times and alliances and putting the far right at the doorstep of power? Unions, politicians, artists, caregivers, solidarity workers, lawyers, and personalities from all walks of life have called in recent days to block the National Rally. In Marseille, for example, Laurent Perrin, a biology researcher at the CNRS and member of the collective Scientifiques en rébellion, participated in writing a column published yesterday by The New Obsand supported by more than 3,000 researchers, teachers, etc.It would be reprehensible not to express ourselves while the extreme right treats science as opinions, denies the seriousness of the climate crisis, and undermines all countervailing powers.“Against what the historian Patrick Boucheron calls it”the sticky feeling of the inevitable“, in large cities as well as in the countryside, thousands of people have also decided to get involved, in concrete terms.
A “letter to the elders”
In 2002, it was mainly in the streets that anti-fascist France massively displayed its determination. 22 years later, it is mainly on social networks that she organizes herself spontaneously. And in ultra-proximity. Thus, in the small group gathered at Barbara’s, in Aubenas-les-Alpes, “everyone set themselves the objective of convincing 3 to 5 people to vote“Their target? Relatives, neighbors.”We go towards the abstentionists, the disillusioned with politics and then the ‘angry, not fascists’, explains the young woman. In rural areas, these people who vote RN are also those you talk to every day, who you appreciate. Dialogue remains possible“It’s not easy to campaign in your own village:”The first night, all the posters we had put up were torn down by young people. It was tense.”
