At a farmers’ market in Meyzieu, a small town on the outskirts of Lyon, Kayla Vermorel’s eye was fixed on a box of potatoes and she wondered whether the large potatoes would be enough to ease tensions in her home.
For weeks, she and her husband have been at odds, especially since French President Emmanuel Macron plunged the country into a surprise election. “It’s really painful,” she said. “I’m worried it will lead to divorce.”
At the heart of their argument, which has lasted for weeks, has been the upcoming election. Vermorel, who emigrated to France from Algeria 35 years ago, had voted for Macron in the last election, but this time he was convinced it was time to shake up the political class by voting for the far-right, anti-immigration Rally National (RN) party.
“Politicians don’t show up, they only talk, they always promise but nothing happens,” said the 54-year-old. He dismissed widespread concerns about his party’s policies targeting Muslims, saying that as a Muslim he had learned to balance France’s secularism with its fate.
But her French husband vehemently opposed the party’s hardline stance on immigration. “He tells me, ‘Migrants are here because they have no other choice,'” she said, referring to people living on the streets. “And he says if they’re in that situation, it’s because they’ve lost everything.”
In the first round of voting on Sunday, 9.4 million French voters voted along the lines of Vermorel, with the far right emerging as the front-runner and adding further heat to an already highly-anticipated election. More than 200 candidates withdrew from the race in an attempt to forge a unified “Republican Front” capable of blocking the RN’s rise to power.
Whether they succeed remains to be seen; France will only know for sure after the second round of voting this Sunday. In the meantime, Vermorel has come to the market to try to ease tensions by cooking some of her husband’s favorite dishes. “We don’t agree on much, so I thought if he ate better, maybe he’d remember that I’m a good cook,” she said with a nervous chuckle.
The “Republican Front” strategy has long been a mainstay of French politics, with opinion polls showing it is was suggested While it could potentially wrest a majority from Marine Le Pen, there is no guarantee that the far-right “bloc” will work this time: for it to work, center-leaning voters would need to support candidates from the far-left France Indomitable (LFI) party, and left-wing voters would need to support candidates from Macron’s center-leaning coalition.
“We only have black and white choices,” said the 40-year-old woman, who declined to give her name because of her position as a civil servant. “And now we’re all talking about it. What should we do? What’s the least bad choice? I think that’s the real question.”
One of the first candidates to withdraw from the race was Sara Tanzili, a member of parliament for Macron’s Renaissance party since 2022 and a centrist candidate for the constituency that includes Meyzieu. While it was unclear earlier this week to what extent the president’s centrist coalition would forge tactical alliances to block Renaissance, she was clear about what she would do. “It was the only possible decision,” she said.
The ambiguity over whether Macron’s centrist candidates would withdraw stems in part from the messaging they conveyed during the election campaign, with Macron trying to argue that France faced the risk of “civil war” if either of his rivals won a majority.
Tanzili was quick to point out that elements of the party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Indomitable France still remain. faced criticism Suspicions of anti-Semitism upset her: “The big difference is that an unyielding France has no fear of an absolute majority in the National Assembly.”
The same cannot be said about the RN, she added: “The far-right stands for the opposite of liberty, equality and fraternity, so it is extremely dangerous for our country and for our ability to live together.”
Tanzili, whose family has Armenian roots going back generations, cited the French government’s promise to revoke citizenship rights for children born and raised in France to foreign parents: “If these rights had not existed when my grandparents and great-grandparents came to France, I would not be French.”
The centrist coalition announced on Wednesday that 90 percent of its candidates had withdrawn from the three-way race with the RN candidate ahead in third place, but it remains to be seen whether centrist voters will follow suit, said Ikram Saidi, one of several volunteers crisscrossing Meyzieu market, handing out leaflets for the local French Indomitable candidate, Victor Plante, who lost to the RN by 10 percentage points in the first round.
“The situation is complicated,” Saidi said. “Some people who voted for Macron’s centrist party are now saying they don’t want to vote for the New Popular Front.”
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Fellow volunteer Brian, 28, added: “They say they won’t vote for extreme views, so to them far left is the same as far right.”
Many centrists argue that the far-left party Indefatigable France, which believes traditional parties no longer serve democracy, does not share “republican values”.
But Bryan sees this portrayal of the party as an extension of the strategy Macron has adopted since 2017, as he relies on the left as a bulwark against the far right while discrediting it. “But you can’t equate a party that only proposes racism with one that has put forward a plan to restore dignity and improve people’s lives, even if there are disagreements within the party.”
As rain began to fall in Meyzieu market, some people said they didn’t plan to vote. “It hurts my heart when I see the bad guys,” said Racine Hadbe, who was born in France to Algerian parents, pointing at the RN. “They are extremists, racists, fascists. I hate them.”
But those feelings didn’t motivate him enough to vote in Sunday’s election; he says he gave up hope of electoral politics in the early 1990s. “No,” he said, then added with a laugh, “I’m prepared to fight them physically, but I’m not going to vote against them. Isn’t that strange?”
Other candidates, like Valérie Sodowyer, said they would cast a blank ballot to avoid having to choose. “None of them suit me,” she said.
Saida Khrifi said since she emigrated from Tunisia 50 years ago, she had watched the welfare state deteriorate and the cost of living soar, leaving her and others struggling.
All of this has left her discouraged about the upcoming election. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I don’t have any trust in anyone.”
Still, she was determined to vote on Sunday “to say no to Le Pen,” she said. She noted that the party began as the National Front, whose racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim views have long been seen as a danger to democracy.
She said the party offered few ideas and instead targeted immigrants like her who have worked and paid taxes their whole lives. “If we’re not already well off like everyone else, [RN] Would having power make us better off?
