In the United Kingdom, hunger and crisis are also eating away at the middle class

• Whether in Downing Street or in the supermarkets, the days go by and are alike for the British: it is the permanent crisis.

  Economic, social, energetic, political.

• A crisis that has the particularity of affecting almost the entire population, and not just the most vulnerable.

  According to a survey, half of the inhabitants entrust skipping meals and not having enough to eat.

• In London and its outskirts, where

  20 Minutes

  went, associations are overwhelmed by the number of people who have fallen into precariousness due to rising prices.

  Citizens who did not expect to find themselves in such a situation.

From our special correspondent in London,

If there's one slight that Anastasia, a 31-year-old Londoner of Greek descent, can't stand, it's being disturbed on her lunch break.

Even more so seen the motif of the interlude.

A BBC News Alert on his mobile on Tuesday quoted the new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak: “The UK is in an economic crisis”.

“Thanks for the scoop!

“, ironically this director of operations of a small consulting agency, near Liverpool Street.

A few days ago, it granted a bonus of 2,000 pounds to all its employees, to help them pay their energy bills this winter.

“We have to support them, otherwise they won't have enough to warm up.

That is to say where the country is.

And we're pretty well paid here.

Imagine elsewhere…”

From phlegm to resignation

The two long hours of waiting when we landed at Gatwick airport, for lack of ground staff, had given us a hint before even setting foot on English soil: the country is running in slow motion.

Already, Gwen, our neighbor on board, was despairing of the state in which she was going to find her homeland: “Nothing works properly anymore, the country is broken.

Everything has become complicated.

»

In London, the same observation - the buses late, the pubs having closed their kitchens, the shops which lower the curtain earlier, the people who go out less, the heavy atmosphere.

“We are going to hang on.

What else can we do?

Gwen breathes.

A legendary British phlegm that sometimes borders on inertia or even resignation to the taste of Anastasia, whose Mediterranean character sometimes struggles with the false calm of the Thames: “Energy bills have doubled!

Imagine the same situation in Greece, everyone would be on the streets.

At home, in France, the government has already been overthrown 23 times.

»

There are of course, across the Channel, historic strikes.

But the atmosphere is very calm for a country where one in two households says they no longer have enough to eat and skip meals*, where the energy bill increased by 30% in April and 80% in October, and where the inflation reached 10.1% - a G7 record - with very soft government aid compared to its European neighbours.

An almost dead end: when Liz Truss promised major tax cuts, the markets panicked and the course of the Pound fell even more severely, dragging the Prime Minister down with her.

An unspeakable and invisible misery

It is the resignation that settled in the eyes of John, this Monday, in the borough of Lambeth, in Greater London.

He looks as empty as his cup of

- when you get up at 5 o'clock to go to work, you can do a few things at

National.

John ticks all the boxes of the inhabitant of Streatham Hill: member of the Afro-Caribbean community, working class and offbeat work schedule.

“I go to work, but that's not enough to pay the bills anymore.

Do you believe it?

We work, my wife and I, but that's not enough.

".

Streatham is by no means a disaster area.

Misery is subtle to detect: an empty stomach, you can't see it.

But on closer inspection, the number of houses for sale or under construction is a first clue.

Impression confirmed by the large number of panels calling for donations, collections and other charitable events.

Or these abnormally depopulated signs.

The crisis is in particular the flight of customers to this neighborhood hairdresser: “When you no longer have enough to eat, do you really believe that you are going to spend on aesthetics?

“Here, we have long hair or we cut it ourselves.

The crisis is also in the shopping carts, full of large packets - more profitable by weight - and dishes to be heated in the microwave.

“People can no longer afford to heat with gas or cook.

The less energy a dish consumes, the more it sells,” says a saleswoman at Tesco Express, the local supermarket.

You don't need to be perfectly bilingual to understand what's going on between the multicultural markets and the empty shops in the area.

Because precariousness has this characteristic of bringing discourse back to the bare essentials.

55 minutes by bus from the City, there is, in the answers of the inhabitants, neither spun metaphor, nor quote stolen from Charles Dickens.

Just rumbling bellies, electricity going out or fridges emptying without the inhabitants being able to do much about it: "We would never have thought that possible", "I'm constantly hungry", "I I don't know how we're going to do it," we whisper, looking scared, thinking of the months to come.

Donations at half mast

“Before, I was afraid of having to choose between eating and warming up.

This winter, I'm afraid I won't be able to do either one, ”despairs Thomas, 42, including twenty as a town hall officer.

For several weeks now, his breakfast has been relegated to the rank of memory and he points to the food bank, the only way to put meat or vegetables in the fridge.

A situation that still amazes him: “We thought we were protected.

I have a job, a good situation… And yet.

This is all the violence of the current economic crisis, which is hitting an entire section of the Kingdom's

.

Who comes to the food bank?

" Everybody ".

What do people miss the most?

" Of all ".

Foodbank board member Alison walks in despair as she walks between the stalls of Saint Margaret's Church, converted for the occasion.

The light from the stained glass illuminates a stock of food that may seem impressive, but far from reassuring the Briton: “It seems a lot, but it is very little compared to the demand and the hunger that is spreading.

“And as the crisis nibbles on the middle class, donations are becoming rarer, she continues in front of packets of diapers.

"It's one of the things we miss the most.

So expensive that people don't give much.

The equation is insoluble: donations drop by 20%, demand increases in the same proportions.

winter is coming

And the problem is the same everywhere.

In the district of Brixton, a forty-minute walk from Streatham, the Brixton Soup Kitchen truck, a local association founded in 2013, distributes food daily.

Every week, Solomon, its founder, sees more and more people in need.

"With rising prices, the middle class can no longer make ends meet."

Faced with a lack of donations, Solomon sometimes gave out of his own pocket to feed the poorest.

But for how much longer?

Even at Hackney's Foodbank, although located in one of Greater London's popular areas, the situation is tense.

“Compared to 2020 or 2021, there are no peaks in demand like during confinements.

2022 is a continuous and always high flow, which never goes down, ”laments Path, the manager.

And the worst is yet to come.

The temperature in London is abnormally high - 18°C ​​- at the end of October.

But inevitably, winter is approaching.

On the outskirts, we talk about the heating like an ex-girlfriend who has become too good for herself.

And between being cold or being hungry, the choice is quickly made.

"Even if it's -15°C this winter, we'll wear three sweaters", touching the radiator is out of the question, explains Vick, resident of Brixton.

Solomon expects to have to help three times as many people.

“It's just the beginning, alert Path, in which the pain has given way to anger.

The coming months are going to be horrible for so many people.

The prices are so high.

From the moment a family has a child in secondary school, it almost falls into precariousness, it's just ridiculous”.

At St. Margaret's Church,

only a miracle could make things better.

Alison wonders "how are we going to get out of this?"

".

She repeats it, winter will be “really terrifying”.

We told you, here, you don't need to be bilingual to understand the fear of tomorrow.

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* According to the results of a Which?

conducted with almost 3,000 people and published last week.

• Economy

• UK

• England

• Economic crisis

• Hunger

• Shortage

• Poverty