Funny weather east of the Alpes-Maritimes. Like the French political landscape, the weather changes your mind like your shirt. Suddenly, the weather is nice. Suddenly, it’s gray. When the sky darkens, the sea breeze falls and a humid heat sets in. The rain is coming.
Inside a Menton tobacco bar, not far from the border, Lætitia serves half a peach to one of the four customers who have come to try their luck in the Euromillion draw. This Tuesday evening, the jackpot is 213 million euros. “With this, no need to work anymore”slips Jeff, the Nice-Matin photographer, smiling.
Between two clients, Lætitia gives her opinion on politics. The 55-year-old Mentonnaise is one of the French people who voted left when they were young, marched against the far right, believed in Macron in 2017 and bitterly regretted it. “He was young, not stupid and spoke wellexplains the tobacconist. When I saw him walking on TV to give his victory speech, I felt something was wrong. He smoked us all.”
“Try the RN”
Disappointed, angry, Lætitia voted for Marine Le Pen in the last presidential election. Since then, the National Rally has become his party. She is one of the 5,028 Mentonnais who voted for Jordan Bardella in the European elections. And on Sunday, she will vote again for the outgoing MP RN Alexandra Masson. “You have to try them, she advocates. We’ve been going around in circles for ages. France must regain its sovereignty and contain immigration. And then, it’s no longer the party it was forty years ago! We can always try until 2027, that’s better than five years with a Macronist majority.”
Outside, protected from the downpour by the arbor, a couple in their fifties are having a drink around a round table. At their foot lies a bag filled with eight cartons of Italian cigarettes which they light and extinguish with an almost automatic movement.
Politics? Christel, it’s not his hobby. She’s not even listed on the lists. But her husband follows. Alban is an employee at Nice airport. Raised in the posh Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, he always voted right-wing. And always vote for the Republicans “on principle”. “Soon there will only be 12 of us left on the planet”he jokes.
The 4th constituency of the Alpes-Maritimes is not his. He votes in Vence, in the 2nd. Another spoil of war for the National Rally in the 2022 legislative elections. To counter the outgoing deputy Lionel Tivoli, a young non-Ciottist LR candidate was invested. “I don’t know him, but I’m going to vote for him”confides Alban.
Still a few faithful LR
“Against the extremes”the last of the Mohicans of the “traditional right” confess “hate Jean-Marie Le Pen and the far left” who, according to him, “can only lead to economic knockout”.
However, Éric Ciotti, the boss of his political family, chose to join the far right. A “treason” which is not really one for Alban. “The RN has been in his heart for 15 years. When he became president of the party, he already had one foot in their home”he squeaks.
And the Baron of Riviera politics is not the only one to have turned to starboard. “People who vote navy blue today are no longer hidinglaments the Vençois. Ten years ago it wasn’t like that.”
Whose fault is it? For what? Alban stops, thinks. “The new generation of less fascist RN deputies”, “societal problems that have not been addressed for 20 years”, the policies pursued by Emmanuel Macron are, for him, so many reasons which pushed the French into the arms of the extreme right. The dissolution of the National Assembly was the final blow. “By turning the table, Macron went for the blows”, believes Alban. A situation that he finds damaging for the country.
“Today, no one can say what will happen, but if the extremes win with a relative majority, it will be a disaster in the Assembly.”
However, the Vençois is not going to play it strategic, at the polls, on Sunday. He will vote for the LR candidate “even if we’re going to get screwed”. In the second round, on July 7, he will not make a barrier. “If the RN passes, I will abstain.”
“I’m not racist”, but…
This is not the case for Guy, whom I met in a bar in the city centre. Guy is 59 years old. He is a roofer and zinc worker for a few more months.
“At the end of the year, I am retiring and leaving France!” he said. He is a convinced frontist. “I have been voting National Front (sic) since I was 18”he declares before specifying, immediately, “but I’m not racist”. Guy is “proud to be French” but hates Macron’s government “who only knows how to make promises”.
“I’ve been working like an idiot for 44 years to pay for retirement and I can’t afford to enjoy it here.” He believes, the coming to power of the RN could change things, “helping the people at the bottom” et “to restore order” in the country. He would dream of “remit the death penalty”, “cut off the heads of the young people who raped the Jewish girl” [à Courbevoie, ndlr]and more security too.
“When I go to Nice, I’m not reassuredhe admits, because of blacks and Arabs.”
Paradoxical, when we know that at the end of the year, Guy will move to Senegal. When we point this out to him, he smiles sideways: “Yes, but it’s not the same. Over there, there are the Senegalese women.”
Funny weather…
