On the edge of the Montpellier coat of arms, the Cours Gambetta, bobo and popular, is breaking records on the left. But its residents are worried.
“People are worried about this possibility of a far-right government, with the risk of having an ungovernable and chaotic country.”
Jean-Philippe Perez, 56, manages the Le Dôme brasserie from generation to generation, which opens Cours Gambetta, an artery bordering the heart of Montpellier. This district has the particularity of displaying record rates of left-wing membership, with LFI at the forefront. In the European elections, the Gambetta office approached 60% for all leftists combined and the neighboring Sévigné office exceeded 70%.
“A nest of gauchos”
“A nest of gauchos”, smiles a mother, in front of a school, convinced from the start. Jean-Philippe Perez knows everyone and his restaurant hosts public meetings – “than the friendly parties”.
This early environmentalist assures us: “Insecurity is a fantasy, from reading the news and watching TV.” He tells how, thirty years ago, prostitutes and bandits were present at Cours Gambetta.
“Bobo” boulevard, where the tram and cycle paths have almost replaced cars, like the mayor, who often rides down the thoroughfare on a bicycle, offices have multiplied there, but it has also kept its popular soul , all in diversity.
On the second part, North African businesses, barbers and grocers, follow one another. The Boumediene family has one of its three butcher shops there, where a varied clientele flocks. It boosts the ultra-local economy. The boss is on vacation and his nephew, Ilies, also confides his fears of an arrival of the extreme right, taking a break to talk about it.
“We wonder if we are going to stay in France”
“I am 19 years old, I was born in Montpellier, I am French, like my parents and we are a big family here”recalls the one who is proud of his Algerian origins. “But there, following the results, we wonder if we are going to stay here, in France.” Silence.
MIDI LIBRE – YP
On Sunday, he will slip the New Popular Front bulletin into the ballot box and he keeps smiling: “Bring Bardella here, he will taste our meats and he will change his mind.”
The speech is the same at Claire and Thierry, emblematic fruit and vegetable sellers at the small Plan-Cabanes market, at the start of the avenue.
“If people came to do an internship here, they wouldn’t vote RN! We’ve never had anything stolen”they say.
Their choice of candidate is not made, Thierry voted for the socialist mayor in the municipal elections, presidential majority in the European elections, to support Ukraine. They note that altercations between street cigarette sellers have decreased, because there are “less drive-thru” sauvage.
From Mitterrand to Le Pen
However, the avenue does not escape the gangrene of drug trafficking. In the small adjacent streets or on public benches, in front of Social Security, and very close to schools. Clashes between North Africans and Albanians, “with a bottle of ammonia”according to a local resident have stopped, but the dealers disrupt the daily lives of the residents.
This climate worries Josiane, 86 years old, pied-noir, volunteer at the neighboring church. This right-wing woman says to herself “lost. It’s difficult for a Christian like me, but we can try Bardella.”
There is his little retreat, these attacks suffered, his gold chain torn off, then this silver cross which came from Bethlehem and “all these people in our charge”, while his son is struggling. Her husband no longer hesitates: he went from Mitterrand to Le Pen.
“They sell in front of you, they are the kings of the world”
Catherine, 74, co-president of the neighborhood association, former plastic arts teacher, meets on the terrace of Berlinpinpin, a kitsch and modern kebab. She regrets this “lot of dealers. There, near the pharmacy, they sell in front of you, they are the kings of the world! The police pass by, without flagrante delicto, they can do nothing.”
The association has plenty of greening ideas. “This beautiful neighborhood could be magnificent if everyone felt safe. They yell, they insult each other, they tear up the plants”she laments. Not enough to rush her into the arms of the RN.
“If there are no immigrants, who will do the work?”
“I’m someone on the left and worried about our feminist struggles. Gay people take it hard, so do foreigners and those who don’t have money… If there are no immigrants, who will do the work?”she points out while the fifth tram line is leading to large construction sites in the neighborhood.
Migrants and refugees, Marie Moretto and her teams from Cimade, an association temporarily established in Cours Gambetta, come to their aid. Fear seizes her. “As soon as there is a news item that involves a foreigner, we are attacked”she is indignant.
Threatening letters and swastikas at Cimade
Swastikas and “complicit association” were painted over after Mathis’ death. “Hatred against Muslims has never been so strong. We are taking a scapegoat, we are stigmatizing a religion and a population to make them bear all the ills”she warns.
MIDI LIBRE – YP
Marie, Catherine and Jean-Philippe are reassured by seeing the residents of the neighborhood mobilizing like never before. Leaflets distributed, door to door, everyone finds abstainers to motivate, young people to raise awareness.
The outgoing MP for Gambetta, LFI, apparently has nothing to fear and elsewhere? “Montpellier resists, but the noose is tightening”alerts Marie.
MIDI LIBRE – YP
“People don’t think”: Monsieur Jean, 91 years old, neighborhood figure
Regulars of the Cours Gambetta, the popular artery which surrounds the coat of arms of Montpellier, know its elegant and slender silhouette. Suit tie and cream Panama hat on his head, Monsieur Jean, 91 years old, has been passing there every day for half a century.
“It was first a working-class neighborhood, with shops, a drugstore or a furniture dealer. Then there were the North Africans, whom we forced out by increasing rents and now there are offices” , he caricatures, looking amused.
He mentions the part “left bourgeois” of Gambetta, half, the second, remaining dedicated to Maghreb businesses. This former SNCF administrative agent cites the philosopher Malebranche or even the journalist Philippe Alexandre, duettist, with Serge July, from Dimanche evening, the political program presented by Christine Okrent thirty years ago.
“I loved it, he said: ‘There’s no point in candidates giving a program, when they are elected, they don’t apply it.’ Politics fascinates him and his heart has continued to beat on the left since his first vote, in the legislative elections, in 1953, in Nîmes, under the Fourth Republic.
He was a Gaullist, “the most honest”, then chose Mitterrand – “he followed a right-wing policy but he granted the extra week of vacation” –, then Hollande – “by default” – or even Gluskmann, in the Europeans, “the least bad.”
Born before the Popular Front and the rise of Hitler
On Sunday, he will not deviate from his convictions. What a symbol indeed! The retiree knew the Popular Front, the first, “the real”, that of the radical socialist party. He was only 3 years old in 1936 and, reconstructed memory or not, he evokes “the people who sang The Internationale in the street.”
A few days after his birth, also, in January 1933, Hitler took power in Germany. Dizzying to think about it, also at a time when the most radical leftists see in the National Rally an emanation of the brown plague of Nazism.
“This party is dangerous. They are angry with foreigners, they are going to pursue harsh policies, which will make people even more unhappy. People don’t think”, analyzes the retiree. Prey, a priori easy to the aigrefins, it counts the attacks suffered. “Three in fifty years” he puts it into perspective. Last year, he chased away an attacker with his cane: “I hit with all my might.”
He recounts a particularly violent one, when a few meters away, in front of Social Security, two dealers exchange hashish in broad daylight.
“They beat me up and snatched my bag”he said, citing the exact date: February 18… 1974. A third, finally, where “North African women helped me. That’s what I see, I don’t care if they have a veil or an abaya.”
“The RN of eccentrics”
He assures this, by comparing all the eras he has lived through: no, no offense to the proponents of a fantasized 20th century France, it was not better before.“I have nostalgia for my youth, not for an era”says the man who, at the Liberation, eighty years ago, remembers the people who rushed to the bakery which made bread for the German army.
“The RN, I take them for eccentrics and imbeciles, their program does not hold water”asserts the wise old man, who implores the younger generations:“We have to go vote!”
