déserter

Primarily the military sense — to desert, to abandon one's post or unit — but also used figuratively for abandoning a place en masse, especially rural areas (les jeunes désertent les villages). Both senses are common and unmarked, unlike the more literary abandonner in some registers.

• Le soldat a déserté pendant la nuit. — The soldier deserted during the night.
• Les habitants désertent ce village depuis vingt ans. — Residents have been deserting this village for twenty years.
• Elle a déserté la réunion sans un mot. — She walked out of the meeting without a word.

Déserter takes a direct object in French (déserter son poste, déserter l'armée) where English inserts "from" ("desert from the army") — learners sometimes insert a preposition, de or à, that doesn't belong there.

• song Le Déserteur — Boris Vian's 1954 anti-war song, first performed the day of France's defeat at Dien Bien Phu and banned from French radio until 1962 — its title is the agent noun built directly on déserter.