“When I arrived in Aix-en-Provence, ten years ago, the National Rally made up 3%. For me who had just spent ten years fighting him in the Var, it was wonderful. » It is 9 o’clock and Françoise Cauwel swallows her coffee in one gulp at the snack bar in the Encagnane market. Substitute for the deputy (MoDem) Mohamed Laqhila, elected from the 11e constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône since 2017, this architect by training summoned her troops – around ten activists – to this working-class district, for the first leafleting of the last week of the campaign, on Monday, June 24. Former deputy mayor of Fréjus (Var), this fifty-year-old has rebuilt her life in Aix. One foot in the world of culture, the other in entrepreneurship.
When talking about the latest electoral results, her eyes widen again in incomprehension. On June 9, “Aix la Bourgeoise”, as it is nicknamed in Marseille, the second city in Bouches-du-Rhône, renowned for its quality of life, its economic dynamism and its high percentage of high graduates, carried for the first time in its history, the National Rally topped a ballot, with 22.7% of the vote. A shock in a town where Emmanuel Macron reached more than 67% of the votes in the second round of the 2022 presidential election and whose sociology seems to fit the spirit of the “start-up nation”.
Expanded to the vast 11e constituency, which covers the western districts of the city and stretches between residential areas and business hubs up to the northern border of Marseille, the figures give Macronie cold sweats: at 33%, the RN has gained 10 points compared to the first round of the 2022 legislative elections. And Aix no longer counterbalances the far-right vote of small towns near the Etang de Berre, such as Les Pennes-Mirabeau, where Jordan Bardella reaches 52%. A situation that could also benefit the candidate of the New Popular Front, the former dean of the law faculty and metropolitan elected official, Marc Pena.
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In her plum dress, smile across her shoulder and warmth in her voice, Françoise Cauwel sets out on the market and courageously calls out to passers-by who are slaloming to avoid her: “This first round is crucial. We cannot find ourselves choosing between extremes. We must vote for a reasonable France. » The answers come thick and fast, recurring: “Your president, he did stupid things. He didn’t listen to the people”, “It’s too late”. The day before, in the same place, a group of young adults from immigrant backgrounds pushed the substitute candidate to the limit. “They told me that they would vote for Bardella… That France had to go to the point of chaos to start again. It gave me the impression of having campaigned for fifteen years for nothing,” she squeaks, still shaken.
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