Residential landscape, on the edge of a disused railway line, in the Saint-Liguaire district of Niort. It is a little after 6 p.m. on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. The small team arrives in two cars. Including Nathalie Lanzi, socialist candidate stamped New Popular Front on the 1re constituency of Deux-Sèvres. Here we go for a two-hour door-to-door marathon.
“I don’t give up, nothing is ever lost”
At the same time, other groups are patrolling the working-class districts of Cholette and Clou-Bouchet in Niort, Fors, Coulonges-sur-l’Autize, Clavé, Saint-Georges-de-Noisné, Mazières-en-Gâtine. Arriving in the first round seven points behind Bastien Marchive (labelled various centre), Nathalie Lanzi is not the type to take her foot off the gas. The same day, she demanded that the public prosecutor look into the comments made by Dorothée Champeau reported in the NR : “Many people believe that all black people will go home, while those who work will not be sent home.”
His number one target: “I want to speak to Bastien Marchive’s voters, who are afraid of the extremes: it’s the little tune he’s playing, but it’s his majority that has given the keys to power to the RN!” So she reassures. She has been a member of the Socialist Party for 40 years, she repeats at every door that opens, just to say that she is not a dangerous Bolshevik.
First door, good pick. “Hello, I am the candidate for the legislative elections.” “Ah! Perfect!” This resident, administrator of a mutual insurance pensioners’ association in Niort, will vote for her. There are also those who are indifferent. And those who are disappointed. “I’m not going to vote anymore, I was too disappointed”replies this mother of three children, one of whom, a soldier, is engaged in an external theatre of operations. “Our mothers fought for the right to vote”Nathalie Lanzi reminds him. ” I know… “ An activist adds: “It is also his future that is at stake today. We believe in this future.”
“I don’t give up, nothing is ever lost. I’ve fought much harder battles”confides the candidate, about to knock on a new door. The day before, while campaigning in Vouillé, she came across a former student who remembered: “I had my first lesson in feminism with you.” For that alone, Nathalie Lanzi seems to think, going door to door is worth it.
