The ethnically diverse northeastern suburbs of Paris are traditionally a bastion of the political left – and of voter abstention. With France’s legislative elections just days away, activists are battling widespread apathy and resignation as they seek to get out the vote and bar Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally from power.
On a balmy afternoon, several hundred people are gathered on a lawn outside the town hall of Clichy-sous-Bois for the fête de la ville – the annual town party in this northeastern suburb of Paris.
There’s a special guest this year: the Olympic Torch is making a stopover as it completes its 12,000-kilometre relay across France in the run-up to the Paris Games.
Deputy mayor Mehdi Bigaderne, however, is focused on a more pressing race. He is busy canvassing ahead of the country’s two-round legislative elections, scheduled for June 30 and the following Sunday.
Voter surveys suggest Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) is poised to win the largest share of seats in France’s National Assembly, giving it a strong chance of forming the next government. It’s a daunting prospect for many in this densely populated, working-class area that has absorbed immigrant wave after wave and is home to mainland France’s youngest – and poorest – population.
The trouble for Bigaderne is that Clichy-sous-Bois also tends to post some of France’s highest abstention rates.
Earlier this month, fewer than 30% of registered voters showed up for European elections, which saw Le Pen’s party triumph with almost a third of the national vote.
Read more‘Love France or leave it’: the small-town voters driving support for Le Pen’s far right
“The low turnout was no surprise. It’s hard to mobilise voters here,” says Bigaderne, the co-founder of ACLEFEU, an advocacy group set up in the wake of urban riots that scarred the suburbs of Paris two decades ago.
The group has set up a stand to inform residents about the election and their voting rights. It also runs a social media campaign to encourage youths to take part in the vote.
“I worked at a polling station for the European elections and saw dozens of youths who wanted to cast ballots but were not registered,” he says. “It’s our duty to encourage people to vote and social media is the best way to reach out to younger voters.”
That’s how 18-year-old Badiallo found out she was registered to vote. She credits the likes of Crazy Sally and Squeezie, two of France’s best-known social media influencers, for encouraging her to get involved in the wake of the European elections.
It was a “wake-up call”, she says. “I didn’t think the National Rally could win so easily.”
The teenager is now determined to cast her first ballot in Sunday’s snap election, which President Emmanuel Macron triggered by dissolving the National Assembly following his party’s crushing defeat in the European polls.
Badiallo follows several feminist groups on social media, who call out the far right’s policies on women’s rights. She says Le Pen’s party “threatens our liberties as women”.
Others, however, appear less concerned.
A few steps away, 20-year-old Ibrahima is not so sure he will take part in the elections. He is more interested in the upcoming Olympic events, some of which will take place in nearby suburbs of Paris.
“I’ll go take a look at the polling station. I think I know where it is,” he says, looking unconvinced.
Lining up at a makeup stand with her grandson, a local health worker who declines to give her name says she cannot remember the last time she voted in an election.
“There was a time when I would examine each and every programme to choose the best candidate – but then nothing ever changed,” she says. “Our representatives have too many personal ambitions and too few for our country. Sometimes you need a real fire for them to realise that things are already burning.”
‘If we have to leave, we will go’
The town of 30,000 inhabitants has had more than its share of fires and unrest over the years.
Clichy-sous-Bois is where weeks of nationwide rioting kicked off in 2005 after two local boys died from electrocution while hiding from police in a power station. Fierce riots again swept this and other impoverished suburbs last year following the fatal police shooting of teenager Nahel Merzouk on the outskirts of Paris.
In between the bouts of rioting, the town has experienced major urban redevelopment, spearheaded by successive government plans aimed at revitalising the poorest and most inaccessible areas of Seine-Saint-Denis.
A tramway line connecting Clichy-sous-Bois to neighbouring suburbs opened in 2019 and a metro link to Paris is expected in 2026. A music academy has recently opened in the town’s centre and a renovation plan for some the most run-down neighbourhoods is under way.
Despite these improvements, poverty is on the rise in Clichy-sous-Bois, says Bigaderne, whose advocacy group has seen an increase in the number of people flocking to its soup kitchens since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We're seeing more and more households struggling with debt and rent payments, and who to turn to social services for support,” says the local councillor, for whom the combination of growing social hardship and “the crisis of confidence in politics” explains the record levels of abstention in his hometown.
Watching over her two children, 36-year-old Amina says she understands the abstentionists who have lost all faith in politicians. She blames Macron’s government for further alienating voters and blurring the line between the far right and more mainstream parties.
“Macron has let us down, his immigration law has paved the way for the National Rally,” says the single mother, referring to hardline legislation approved with support from far-right lawmakers last year, which Le Pen claimed as an “ideological victory” for her party.
Read moreHow France’s far right changed the debate on immigration
A French national, Amina says she increasingly feels rejected by her home country owing to her Muslim faith and North African origins. She is thinking of moving abroad with her children.
“I’ve been made to understand I’m not really French – and so I no longer feel attached [to this country],” she says.
Amina will vote to “block the far right”, which has pledged to bar dual nationals from certain jobs and routinely distinguishes French nationals “of foreign origin” from the rest. But she fears hers is a losing battle.
“My father was brought over to France because the country needed workers. I grew up believing in the Republic’s values and always felt French,” she says. “But if we have to leave, we will go. I’m tired of fighting.”
“If France wants to build itself without us, we will go,” she adds. “But don’t come looking for us in a few years’ time because the country needs to be repopulated.”
This article is a translation of the original in French.
