Farouk stood at his doorstep on a row of redbrick terrace houses in the northern French town of Roubaix – once the glory of the textile industry before decades of factory closures and unemployment made it the poorest town in mainland France.
“It feels like there’s a lot of darkness in the world and we just want to let in a little light,” said the 73-year-old former market shoe trader and father of seven, before Sunday’s local elections.
