the doubts and hopes of the people on the left
ReportIn Empalot, a working-class district of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Mélenchon won over an electorate who were upset against Macron and eager to make the voice of the left heard, in particular on inequalities.
Sabrina Amerkad, 40, is a computer scientist, graduated from an IUT then trained “on the job”, as she says. She helps companies install accounting software for a major German brand, so there’s no shortage of work. She grew up with her brother and sister in the popular district of Empalot in Toulouse. “Your mom, how are you? », asks an elderly neighbor, herself released from intensive care a few weeks earlier after two months of hospitalization due to particularly severe Covid-19. The mother is fine, but as far as the presidential debate is concerned, she does not hide her annoyance. “Health is the subject we should all be discussing. With school, with employment. And what do we talk about every day on TV before the war in Ukraine? Arguments over nothing. »
In April 2017, she was part of the cohort of abstainers, particularly numerous in the polling stations of Empalot. The debates seemed to him too distant, insufficiently concrete. This time, she will most likely vote. “In the family, we like Mélenchon. He talks about social, he talks about work. He’s not really taken seriously by others, that’s a mistake. He doesn’t manage his emotions very well, that makes him different and that’s also why we appreciate him. »
If the voters of this popular, associative, militant, demanding and sometimes radical left do not abstain for the first round of the presidential election on April 10, the hypothesis of a Jean-Luc Mélenchon qualified in the second round seems plausible . Because in his historic lands, such as Empalot, a district of Toulouse, where he had exceeded 40% in the first round in several polling stations, even 50% in the heart of the main set of buildings, the candidate of La France insoumise continues to seduce an electorate revolted against Emmanuel Macron, opposed to the far right and eager to make the voice of the left heard on health, education, purchasing power and, above all, on inequalities, a decisive subject . What Sophia Felag, 39, employee at the Aldi supermarket in Empalot, sums up in one observation: “You know, the debates from above… At the end of the month, the store is always emptier because customers are waiting for the payments from the beginning of the following month. You see people paying with yellow coins or stealing slabs of butter. So, we know what inequalities are. »
“A plutocracy rules France”
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