There is little love for Emmanuel Macron in France’s northern former mining region. He “values globalisation and Europe more than France”, says one resident
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskBypassed by high-speed trains and breezy ambition, Auchy belongs to what analysts call “peripheral” France. Peggy Belicki, who a year ago set up the food truck, filled with apples, potatoes, cabbages and chocolate tarts, says she caters to all sorts, from pensioners to single parents: “We offer a sort of moral-support service.
Yet in 2017, at the previous presidential election, the nationalist-populist Marine Le Pen topped first-round voting in Auchy. In the run-off, 65% of its voters backed her; just 35% backed Emmanuel Macron. Ahead of the two-round election on April 10th and 24th, polls say she is the most popular choice for blue-collar voters nationally, and again the most likely to face Mr Macron in the run-off.
Other candidates are also tapping into the yearning in blighted corners like this for an alternative to the sitting president. One is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a razor-tongued 70-year-old from the hard left who is on his third presidential run. He came second in first-round voting in the village in 2017. Another is Eric Zemmour, a far-right polemicist whose latest wheeze is “re migration” to send 1m immigrants “home”.
On a recent weekday, Emmanuelle Danjou, a sales manager, was slipping leaflets for Mr Zemmour into letter boxes on an estate of neat two-storey homes. His programme “is really focused on a reconquest of our country. We’ve lost our values; we’re dismantling our country, our history”, she says; “He says out loud what many French people think in private.” Frédéric Dewitte, from a nearby village, joins her leafleting.
This matters for Mr Macron. Not because he needs their votes: polls suggest that he would easily beat any potential rival in the run-off. But if he is re-elected, Mr Macron will have to govern a discontented and volatile country which readily takes its unhappiness to the streets. Some of his campaign proposals, unveiled on March 17th, would be vigorously contested, notably his promise to raise the pension age from 62 to 65.
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