After dark in a bakery kitchen, Stéphane Ravacley was bashing blocks of butter with a giant rolling pin as he prepared his croissant pastry. “A lot of French people have lost faith in politics,” he said, shaping the first of 500 croissants. “They’re not voting, they don’t feel listened to, and it’s my battle to win them back.”
The 53-year-old baker who hails from what he calls the “bottom rung of the social ladder” has captured France’s imagination as one of the most improbable newcomers in this weekend’s first round of the parliamentary elections.
