“Good afternoon, we’re here for the elections, for Jean-Luc Mélenchon.” The candidate of the new unitary alliance of the left, Thomas Portes, repeats the same sentence in every house, realizing that he is in the favorable territory. It was Thursday, June 9, and this Mélenchonist leader was distributing election propaganda in a block of flats in a modest neighborhood of Neuilly-sur-Marne on the eastern outskirts. Paris. at the gates first round of legislative electionsIn France this Sunday, residents of this ‘suburb’ town were divided between those who were indifferent to these elections and unconditional supporters of the rebels. melenchonthe new strongman of the left.
“You can count on me for the market,” a young French woman of African descent replies after receiving a brochure. “But aren’t the elections over already?” said a young man, sitting on another floor, who, like many of his neighbors, believed that the election cycle ended with the presidential elections in late April. he asks.
Since the election calendar in France was changed in 2000 to coincide with the election of the president and the elections of the deputies, the winner in the presidential election was almost automatically imposed in the legislative elections, which were considered second-line votes. These parliamentary elections are characterized by the division of French territory into 577 constituencies. (number of seats) and Only the representative with the most votes is elected. in each, an electoral system conducive to the presidential party.
This trend, however, changed this year with the composition of France Insumisa (linked to Podemos in France), the Socialist Party, the Greens and the New People’s Union of Communists. According to recent surveys, the president’s coalition Emmanuel Macron It can be left without a simple majority in the Assembly. Nor can a sadness about the victory of the left be completely ignored.
Save historic red belts
One of the areas where the new progressive alliance could grab more MPs from Macron, working-class neighborhoods and cities, It has a high percentage of the population with a migrant background, also known as the ‘suburb’. “We believe we can get 12 deputies from Seine-Saint-Denis (northeast of Paris), where Mélenchon won 49 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election,” Portes said. the second poorest division of France and often stigmatized by the far right for its character multiculturalism and insecurity issues. In fact, the president made one of his last electoral trips before the first round of legislative elections.
In addition to Seine-Saint-Denis, the leaders of the New People’s League want to paint a large part of the war. Paris’ environmental constituenciesand like other big cities Marseille, Lyon or Lille. They want to save the historical red belts, working-class lands that were the fiefdoms of socialists and communists but whose identities have been diluted by deindustrialization and the multiplicity of identities by the rise of individualism and multiculturalism. For example, in the 2017 legislative election, the left won seven MPs in Seine-Saint-Denis, while Macron’s party won three and the Republican right two.
“Five years ago, people thought Macron was neither left nor right, but when he decided to cut rent subsidies, they quickly realized he was a conservative,” explains Fatiha Keloua-Hachi, the socialist candidate in this episode. “Residents of Neuilly-sur-Marne are exhausted, at least 2,000 people sign up every Saturday at food distribution centers,” says Portes, who is facing outgoing deputy Patrice Anato from the presidential party. 28% of the population is below the poverty line, Seine-Saint-Denis residents are very sensitive to the loss of purchasing power due to inflation, which is the main theme of the campaign.
“He knows how to talk to young people with a migrant background”
“Normally, I wouldn’t vote in legislative elections, but this time I will for a Mélenchon candidate,” says Kamel, 55, an electrician of Algerian descent. A resident of Neuilly sur Marne, the left is trying to block the prices of basic necessities or Increase the minimum wage to 1,500 euros.
The rebel leader “knows how to talk to young people with a migrant background like me. But I’m afraid he won’t be able to deliver on half of his promises if he wins the election,” says a 35-year-old car salesman, who was arguing with a group of friends outside a nearby train station. the neighboring town of Gagny. His speech reflects a distrust of the political class so prevalent among residents. Seine-Saint-DenisWhere turnout in the 2017 legislative elections was around 30%.
With police brutality complaint and with the fierce defense of the French Muslims against attacks from the far right, Mélenchon won the sympathy of the inhabitants of the “suburban”. According to an Ifop poll, 69 percent of Muslim voters supported him in the first round of the presidential election.
Again, New People’s Union criticized for low presence of candidates with a migrant background in Seine-Saint-Denis —only 4 out of 12 — in addition to the hand-picked appointment of applicants with little local presence, such as Gabriel Amard, Mélenchon’s son-in-law in the Lyon “suburb”. “There is an obvious paradox between the overtly anti-racist rhetoric and the profile of candidates who don’t fit in with the locals. In this sense, there is a problem of representation,” criticizes Cécile Gintrac, a geographer and activist involved in the associative life of this region.