“Struggle is lost on this side”: resignation and electoral distance among young environmental activists

The end of the 2010s was marked by new generations in environmentalist mobilizations, nonetheless the green wave on the occasion of the 2022 electoral cycle did not happen. This qualitative investigation explores the construction of the relation to the voting for several activists of a local Extinction Rebellion group, some of whom abstained from the 2022 elections. Their abstention is linked to poor professional integration and residential decline. Their militant commitment does not contradict this movement of withdrawal, but rather contributes to its amplification. These activists draw a line that distances them from the locally established activist fractions. This abstention shall therefore be understood less as an intellectualized critique of political delegation than as a distancing from conventional forms of participation in what they socially embody.