INVESTIGATION
Green city centers against abstentionist suburbs. On June 28, during the second round of municipal elections, the environmental candidates won several major cities against the background of exceptionally strong abstention. A "green wave" that has notably swept Strasbourg away. This is particularly the case in Strasbourg. But does the phenomenon really deserve its nickname, or is it just a mirage?
To get to the bottom of it, our correspondent in Strasbourg decided to delve into the results of all the polling stations in the city to answer a question: did the new widely elected environmental mayor, Jeanne Barseghian, same popularity in the hypercentre of Strasbourg as in the suburbs?
The new mayor of Strasbourg Jeanne Barseghian is the guest of Europe 1 this Monday at 7.40 am
"Unknown to the battalion"
If it caused a real tidal wave in the hypercentre and the fashionable districts of Strasbourg, the "green wave" seems to stop in the suburbs, where abstention has sometimes reached 85%, as in the Hautepierre district. Result: when a photo of the new mayor is shown to these inhabitants, the answers are hesitant, and none of the people questioned recognizes it. "Unknown to the battalion" even answers a young man at the microphone of Europe 1. A phenomenon which may be explained in part because Jeanne Barseghian may have won 42% of the votes last June 28, she was elected only by 15% of voters only.
Ban diesel? "Did she go crazy?"
It is therefore not surprising that certain emblematic points of its program, such as the ban on diesel vehicles from 2025, are far from being unanimous in these districts. "Did she go crazy?" wonders a young man who believes that "we cannot" implement such a measure. "She believed that people were all rich?", Says another resident.
Tensions more serious than those of yellow vests?
From there to say that this divergence hides a real spatio-economic divide? Yes, according to the former socialist mayor, and unsuccessful candidate this year, Catherine Trautmann. "I have met a lot of people in the neighborhoods who have told me that they want to be on the street, and that it would be violent, if the end of diesel was brought about," she reports. "The yellow vests were already the expression of social unrest among the lower social strata of the population, but there one can have a more serious problem of tension if one looks at the future".