At a farmer’s market in Meyzieu, a small commune on the outskirts of Lyon, Kheira Vermorel eyed a box filled with potatoes, wondering if the sizeable spuds would be enough to soothe tensions at home.– she and her husband had been at odds. “It’s been really hard,” she said. “I’m worried it might lead to a divorce.”
Her French husband, however, was vehemently opposed to the party’s hardline stance on immigrants. “He tells me: ‘If migrants are here, it’s because they don’t have any other choice,’” she said, citing those who live on the streets. “And he says if they’re in that situation, it’s because they’ve lost everything.”
The ambiguity over whether Macron’s centrist candidates would drop out had been owed partly to their messaging during the campaign, asof antisemitism, that rattled her. “The big difference is that there is no risk that France Unbowed will have an absolute majority in the National Assembly.” But Brian said he saw that depiction of the party as an extension of a strategy employed by Macron since 2017, discrediting those on the left while also relying on them as a bulwark against the far right. “But there’s no equivalence to be drawn between a party that proposes nothing but racism and parties that, even if they don’t agree among themselves, have come up with a project to give people back their dignity and improve their lives.
Since arriving from Tunisia five decades ago, Saida Khlifi said she had steadily watched as the welfare state deteriorated, leaving herself and others struggling as the cost of living soared.The situation had left her unenthused about the forthcoming election. “It’s neither here nor there,” she said. “I don’t have any confidence in anyone.”