Imagine a tiny French village where the schoolyard’s green gate squeaks open every morning and the same wool-sweatered teacher welcomes the kids. In Les Oubliés (The Forgotten Ones), Gauvain Sers turns this simple scene into a moving portrait of rural France that feels left behind. With warm folk-pop melodies, he sings about closing classrooms, disappearing bakeries, silent playgrounds, and towns slowly hollowed out as services and jobs migrate toward Paris.
Yet the song is more than nostalgia. It is a gentle but pointed protest: Sers contrasts the chalk-dust reality of village life with the ministry offices where children become statistics. He gives a voice to the “campagne, les paumés, les trop loin de Paris” – the people who feel like the last slice of the national cake. By the final chorus, you will hear both the sadness and the quiet resilience of communities determined not to vanish from the map.