FOR AND AGAINST

There is, alas! no doubt that these are times of politics.
Politics is everywhere: in the café, on the bus, on the train, in the street, in the household... From morning to evening and at night too, French citizens vote... They vote with words and cast, in conversation, as if into a ballot box, verbal and verbose ballots. Just as there is the season for peas, there is a season for harsh, social-democratic and financial discourse... Even the ladies themselves, and the most charming ones, have concerns and passions of an economic and diplomatic nature these days... Politics is very much in vogue this summer...
...You can't have a beer at the brasserie, you can't meet an "old friend" on the boulevard, you can't hop on the metro without immediately hearing politics in your ears... There isn't one Frenchman in a hundred, at this hour, moreover a difficult one, who doesn't express, at the slightest opportunity, and categorically, his "very clear" opinion.

- I, sir, am going to tell you frankly what I think... - Well! Me, sir, in Caillaux's place, this is what I would do...

Decisive words are exchanged like bullets, without result... And everyone talks... And everyone votes with their tongues!... There are days, all the same, when politics no longer interests the French at all... There are days, all the same, when voters, who are always ready, on the tram or in the car, to express their opinion in a radical and definitive way, temporarily renounce having any opinion at all. These are the days when there are elections!... These are the days when voters are invited to give their opinion, seriously! These are the only days when voters' opinions can truly have an immediate influence on politics!...
On these days, voters keep quiet and don't vote... In the first round of voting for the cantonal elections, there were 185,820 abstentions in the Seine alone... As many abstentions as votes....
...We don't really understand....

Maurice PRAX.