a large part of the polling stations have closed, the major cities continue to vote

Plush housing estates and “shit boulevard” in Hem, in the North

Salle des fêtes in Hem (59), a town in the Lille metropolitan area that is both well-to-do and popular. Located next to the town hall, it is the centralizing office. Behind barriers, tables are provided “for computer scientists”, specifies Blandine Leplat, president of the office and elected UDI. For decades, Hem has voted centre-right.

The outgoing deputy, Valérie Six (LR-UDI), faces in particular Félicie Gérard (Horizons, invested Together!) and the ecologist Karima Chouia (invested Nupes). In this 7^e northern constituency, nine candidates, almost deserted polling stations and those where it votes. Like here. “It’s a city center electorate, with also a lot of people who live abroad”, says Blandine Leplat.

We are not far from calm and opulent housing estates and the headquarters of large northern retail chains. Not far either from the Laennec district with its nicknamed “boulevard du shit”. Another world. The Hemois vote will probably have little to do with that of the working-class neighborhoods and neighbors of Roubaix where the territory is divided between the 7^e and the 8^e. There are people in the middle of the afternoon, ladies in sun hats and families with strollers.

Voters head to the village hall in Hem, in the North, on June 12, 2022. CYRIL BITTON FOR “THE WORLD”

There is the Beaumont district, near the Château La Fontaine, property of Gérard Mulliez, the founder of Auchan, and the Villa Cavrois, an architectural masterpiece commissioned from Mallet-Stevens by a textile industrialist. It was at the time of the industrial splendor of this north-eastern slope of the Lille metropolis. It has changed a lot, but not that much in this neighborhood where the beautiful properties are hidden by rows of thick trees.

In the Beaumont district, in Croix, the neighboring town, there are even private streets. Two offices are installed in a sports hall. We feel a friendly competition between the two presidents. The voter count is slightly better on the first desk, which is a little more upscale, where “it votes like in 2017”, says its president. In the middle of the afternoon, the neighboring office shows ten points behind in participation. “In 2017, we finished at 47.44%. We will do less” provides Etienne Delepaut, sports assistant to the mayor UDI.

“It’s the fault of the sun” for an assessor that this democratic casualness annoys. He recalls that “Here, it’s quite easy and quite popular”. In a neighboring garden, a lunch on the lawn ends and, in the park that runs along the parking lot, young people smooch on the lawn.

In the village hall of Hem, in the North, the occasion of the 1st round of the legislative elections.

Florence Traullé (Lille, correspondent)