The diagonal of votes
On Sunday 10 April 2022, the first round of the French presidential election takes place.
Troubled by multiple protest movements (yellow waistcoats, anti-vax, defence of minorities) Emmanuel Macron's five-year term has been marked by two major international crises: the covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
These exceptional events sometimes make us forget that a big part of the French population does not recognize itself in this "France of the start-ups" that the Jupiterian president embodies.
Starting from Notre-Dame-des-Landes (44), Macron first political setback, and ending in Frejus (83), the showcase town of the Rassemblement National, the journey is a series of representation of "non-places" representing the "invisibles of the republic".
The photographs were taken during an election weekend and exclude any human presence. Each one is an evocation of the past five years or of the new agitation of an electoral campaign unprecedented by the circumstances.
Put together, these images form a unique and subjective landscape: a campaign landscape.
Portfolio made from Saturday 09 April 2022 at 06h20 until Sunday 10 April 2022 at 19h23.
Brains (Loire-Atlantique)
Cows in a meadow in the Breton marshes at daybreak
09 April 2022, 06:20
L'amour vache
The new methods of fighting for the defence of animal dignity have been increasingly successful for several years.
The government's response, through the voice of the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin, was to create a specialised gendarmerie unit called Demeter.
Although highly publicised in the media, intrusions by associations represent only 0.28% of complaints of damage from the agricultural world to the gendarmerie services.
The main associations (including L214) denounce a "police force at the service of the agricultural lobby" and in particular of the FNSEA.
The Animalist Party, chaired by Hélène Thouy, has not managed to gather the 500 signatures needed to validate its presence in the first round of the presidential election
Vigneux-de-Bretagne (Loire-Atlantique)
On the official billboards, only Yannick Jadot's electoral poster is stuck.
09 April 2022, 08:29
Chouette il y a Hulot !
"To be very clear, Notre- Dame-des-Landes, there was a vote, I said that my wish was to respect it and therefore to do it". Emmanuel Macron, 6 April 2017
This is the most media-friendly move of the beginning of Emmanuel Macron's five-year term: Nicolas Hulot becomes Minister for Ecology. He will ratify the government's decision to stop the airport project by presenting it as a major personal victory. He will declare concerning the activists, straight in his his boots: "let's not confuse ecology and anarchy". He announced his departure from the government on Tuesday 28 August and declare: "I don't want to lie to myself anymore".
In the first round of the presidential election, 2022, at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, Jean-Luc Melenchon is ahead of Emmanuel Macron.
Vigneux-de-Bretagne (Loire-Atlantique)
A flowerbed on the square in front of the church.
09 April 2022, 08h33
Glyphosate : l’ivraie et le faux
"I have asked the government to take the necessary to ensure that the use of glyphosate be banned in France as soon as alternatives have been found, and at the latest in 3 years."
Emmanuel Macron, 27 November 2017.
"Can we say that there will there will be no more glyphosate in three years? Impossible! [...] If I told you that, it's simple, I'm killing completely certain sectors".
Emmanuel Macron, 24 January 2019.
"On glyphosate, I have not succeeded. Some farmers told me that if we forced them to out quickly, they would the door, because their Spanish or Italian competitors could continue continue to produce'.
Emmanuel Macron, 24 January 2022.
Orvault (Loire-Atlantique)
A supermarket trolley in a bus stop
09 April 2022, 08:53
Les faims de mois
According to an Elab poll of 24 March 2022, with 57%, purchasing power is the first concern of the French during the electoral campaign.
Leaving Eric Zemmour with the identity positioning,
Marine Le Pen is running a campaign on purchasing power.
One of her slogans is "give the money back to the French".
Emmanuel Macron, the banker, is seen as "the president of the rich" despite his "whatever it takes" policy during the pandemic, intended to support the purchasing power of the French.
Les Herbiers (Vendée)
A sculpture of Christ overhangs the finishing road in Les Herbiers.
09 April 2022, 11:03
J'ai vu la Lumière
Les Herbiers, in the Vendée department, is the stronghold of Philippe de Villiers, who supports Eric Zemmour. He himself was a sovereignist presidential candidate for the last time in 2007.
He says he was "dazzled" by the discourse of the media polemist.
This identity-based discourse revolves around the Christian roots of France.
In the Vendée, with its rich history of religious turmoil, each crossroads has its ordeal.
"France has Christian roots. We must dare to proclaim them. We all have a bit of Jerusalem in our
veins, a little bit of Athens, a little gospel that runs."
Philippe de Villiers , 5 February 2022
Les Herbiers (Vendée)
A campaign poster of Emmanuel Macron with an inscription "betrayed
09 April 2022, 11h09
Judas President(s)
"On the road to treason, there is only the river of shame to cross".
Attributed to François Mitterrand, but surely apocryphal, would this adage be the line to follow to become president?
The Fifth Republic has just given us five successive presidents, qualified to varying degrees as "traitors" by their own camp.
The last traitor to date, François Hollande, is said to have already warned his successor: "you too will be betrayed..." he is said to have told him when he learned of the appointment of Édouard Phillipe as Prime Minister during the transfer of power in May 2017.
In 2022, Édouard Philippe created his own party "Horizons".
La Flocelliere (Vendée)
Un magasin fermé dans un bourg de Vendée
09 avril 2022, 11h43
Paris m’a tué ?
As early as 2012, the Front National, which has since become Rassemblement National, decided to address rural areas as a priority.
In contact with "the real France" as opposed to the Parisian elites' "entre soi", Marine Le Pen hammers out a discourse of abandonment of these territories by the central power.
This feeling of declassification was expressed at the beginning of the five-year term by the revolt of the Yellow Vests, "the forgotten of the Republic".
Bressuires (Vendée)
Torn posters make up a hybrid face half-Zemmour half-Roussel
09 April 2022, 12:04
Partir, revenir
The electoral campaign has been marked by the appearance of a newcomer (Eric Zemmour) and the return of a forgotten presidential candidate, the French Communist Party (led by Fabien Roussel).
The first wants the union of the right, the second has sent off the union of the left.
Victims of the "useful votes" of the first round the Reconquest of the first round is turning into a retreat from Russia while for the "aperoussel of the other, there is nothing left on the table but piquet.
Mailhac sur Benaize (Haute-Vienne)
Funerary plaque broken on a priest's grave in the cemetery of Mailhac sur Benaize
09 April 2022, 17:38
Le mal mourir
On April 4, 2022, one week before the first round of voting, Jacqueline Jencquel, an activist for assisted suicide, took her own life by injection.
The traditional left-right divide seems to persist in this area.
The left-wing candidates are more in favour of improving the existing law towards more freedom of choice and the right for the strict application of the so-called Claeys-Léonetti Law of 2016.
Emmanuel Macron, true to his method, is proposing a major public consultation on the subject if he's reelect.
La Souterraine (Creuse)
A poster representing François Hollande with the inscription "I have no limits" is stuck on a on a rubbish bin.
09 April 2022, 17:48
Meilleur Ouvrier de France
"Some people should be told that instead of making a mess, to see if there are no jobs there".
Emmanuel Macron, 04 October 2017
The GM&S case is the poisoned gift left by the "normal president" François Hollande to "president 2.0" Emmanuel Macron.
The biggest company in La Souterraine, in the Creuse region is the symbol of the misunderstanding between President Macron and the world of labour.
In June 2017, frustrated by a new public questioning during a trip, he replied to a former employee that he is not "Father Christmas".
In 2019, Emmanuel Macron received the title of Meilleur Ouvrier of France by the Ministry of National Education.
La Souterraine (Creuse)
A car in a car park is covered with ice in the early morning.
10 April 2022, 05:17
Co-voiture rage
In rural and peri-urban areas, a car is the essential tool for for daily travel.
By announcing an increase in the tax on fuel, the government of Macron's Prime Minister Edouard Philippe's triggered the revolt of the so-called "Yellow Vests" at the beginning of the quinquennium.
Laqueille station (Puy-de-Dôme)
An independent service station closed and abandoned.
10 April 2022, 09:29
Epris de l'essence
The health crisis and the successive confinements have accelerated the slow death of
The health crisis and the successive confiscations have accelerated the slow death of country service stations, whose number has been divided by three in thirty years.
These disappearances reinforce the feeling of abandonment of rural populations, which are under-equipped with electric vehicles.
Cultures (Lozère)
A poster of Jean Lassalle in a wooden bus shelter in Lozere.
10 April 2022, 1:35 pm
L' authentik-tok
The rural candidate is the champion of Tik-Tok. With more than 200,000 subscribers on the youth social network, Jean Lassalle has made a name for himself.
Overacting to the point of hamming it up, he is the grandfather with whom rural youths love to make "salsify".
In Lozère, he got more than 10% of the vote in the first round.
Les Taillades (Gard)
A flag with the yellow and blue colours of Ukraine is installed on the front of the polling station
10 April 2022, 15h07
Nous sommes en guerre
"We are at war".
Emmanuel Macron, 16 March 2020
With this martial declaration as the health crisis spreads, Emmanuel Macron has become for a certain number of French people a dictatorial General Tapioca and gravedigger of individual liberties.
"The war (...) is here, before our eyes "
Emmanuel Macron, 2 March 2022
Ironically, two years after his warmongering speech against covid-19, a war breaks out on the eastern borders of Europe.
As the presidential campaign begins, President Macron sees himself as a father of the nation: "I will have only one goal, you protect".
Candidate Macron, on the other hand refuses any confrontation confrontation and debate with his opponents in the first round.
The President-candidate must to deal with Ukraine.
Le Martinet (Gard)
Eric Zemmour's campaign posters are displayed behind the historic premises of the CGT miners' union.
10 April 2022, 15h31
Le retour du Genre Humain
"Oh fuck!... 15 years!". the parodied expression of Jacques Chirac's puppet in the Guignols de l'Info TV show could be the cry of the heart of communist militants in 2022.
Absent from the presidential election since 2007 under their own banner, the red flags are flying again in meetings.
In Le Martinet, in the Gard region, people have been voting communist in municipal elections for 100 years without interruption. The memory of the coal miners of the last century and the nobility of the working class heroes are kept alive .
But the wretched of the earth have now other representatives who compete: the far right nationalists.
Frejus (Var)
A Jean-Luc Melenchon ballot paper in the hands of an assessor during the counting of votes at the town hall of Frejus
10 April 2022, 7:23 pm
On est chez nous !
"Mélenchon... Mélenchon... Mélenchon..."
The name of the LFI candidate slams and resounds in the polling station No. 1 of the town hall of Frejus.
An assessor, during the counting, seems to take a malicious pleasure in raising the tone at each reading of the ballot of the one who seems to be his favorite.
In this town hall held by the Rassemblement National, where Marine Le Pen's party traditionally makes its political showcase, the situation lends itself to smiles.
In the final count, Marine Le Pen is in the lead, including in the whole of the department of the Var.
In 37 minutes, the campaign for the second round starts.