While each party and candidate will enter into a seduction operation, how are the policies perceived from the working-class neighborhoods? In Roubaix in the suburb of Lille in the North of France,…

French presidential election: working-class neighborhoods do not feel politically represented

Audio 02:26

View of Roubaix, in the North of France.

By: Alice Rouja Follow

5 mins

While each party and candidate will enter into a seduction operation, how are the policies perceived from the working-class neighborhoods?

In Roubaix in the suburb of Lille in northern France, one in two households lives on 1,000 euros per month and problems of housing, cleanliness and crime overlap.

In these neighborhoods with a high abstention rate, we do not feel politically represented.

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On television, when we talk about Roubaix, we generally hear that the city, "a

former city of prosperous industries, has since experienced a record unemployment rate and exploding crime

So it's true, in 2018, out of nearly 100,000 Roubaisiens, 44% of the population lived below the poverty line and 30% were unemployed.

But for Asma, a 20-year-old student, the media and politicians are only interested in the negative aspects of working-class neighborhoods. “

In fact, we are always there to blame ourselves, to point fingers at us, to say what we are doing wrong ... But we never try to find out what is going well. We never try to know how to improve our daily life. We think that it is by putting more police force that it will go well. No, it's not just that, we must also rebuild buildings, we must also put more garbage cans in the streets,

”she quotes.

Roubaix is also 80% abstention during the last regional elections.

Nothing that surprises Nassim, 25, involved in grassroots associations, as well as in the party Europe ecology-The Greens.

“

We cry every time in an election, where abstention is amazing, but at some point, you infantilize them, you treat them like the problems of their own territory.
I find that crazy!

», Exclaims Nassim.

The absence of policies on the ground

Not to feel listened to, to have the impression of being placed in the “clichés” box and, like Asma, to notice the absence of policies on the spot, whether on the left or on the right. “

The role of a deputy is to hold sessions in Parliament and then to come and meet the citizens of his constituency. I never knew how to meet the MP from the North, I never had this information. It's a bit of a shame because that's their role, in fact,

”says Asma.

Add to that that no elected official looks like these inhabitants. A photograph of the National Assembly is enough to see the absence of women, racialized people or workers. For sociologist Éric Fassin, it is time to change our outlook on the suburbs. “

In politics, the idea that there are no separate categories that should be treated in a different way, that is the democratic issue. In other words, if we can think politically, we must not reduce people to a supposed culture, we must think of them as political subjects. People capable of thinking for themselves, of deciding what seems desirable to them, of getting involved, of fighting and therefore of helping to change the world

”, analyzes the sociologist.

In Roubaix, we do not know if we will go to the polls for the next presidential election, but political commitment nevertheless exists - differently -, as evidenced by the involvement of residents for educational, cultural or leisure projects.

Report France - French Presidential election: working-class neighborhoods do not feel politically represented

French presidential election: working-class neighborhoods do not feel politically represented

The absence of policies on the ground

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