‘It’s going to be tight’: Macron’s centrists struggle to deter voters from backing far right

Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, the French secretary of state tasked with citizenship, told voters at an Armenian church in Marseille that concerns about the election had left her mother ‘in tears’ daily. Photograph: Anthony Micallef/The Guardian

Standing in a courtyard framed by the white walls of one of Marseille’s Armenian churches, Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, France’s secretary of state tasked with citizenship, took a deep breath, choosing her words carefully as she addressed a voter who had admitted she was considering switching allegiances to the far right.

Agresti-Roubache, born to a family with Algerian roots, led with the heart, describing how concerns over the snap parliamentary election results had left her elderly mother “in tears” daily. When the tactic proved futile, she changed tack. “When you don’t have power, you can say whatever people want to hear,” said Agresti-Roubache.