BBCFirst got here the sharp clack of steel on steel, then the scuffing of sneakers on gravel, and at last a refrain of well mannered applause.
On a brilliant, blustery morning this week, 1000’s of individuals gathered in a park within the southern port metropolis of Marseilles, taking their minds off France’s seething political divisions and focusing as an alternative on the beloved native sport of pétanque.
And this was no informal recreation, however fairly 1 / 4 finals match on the World Pétanque Championships – an annual televised occasion held on France’s Mediterranean coast, and overlapping this yr with the nation’s sudden parliamentary elections.
“The present should go on. Pétanque should go on. Smiling should go on,” mentioned Laurence Astier, head of communications for the championships.
“France is the perfect nation on this planet, after all, at this sport. However the different ones are Thailand and Benin. It’s a world sport,” Astier enthused.
Round her, within the dappled shade of the park’s leafy avenues, the crowds moved between matches, beer in hand, necks craned for a glimpse of the motion.
“I misplaced yesterday,” mentioned George Gonzalez-Gomez, 68, a retired civil servant, with a cheerful shrug.
However even right here, the discordant clamour of France’s polarised politics generally broke by.
“Fachos,” – fascists – mentioned a person close to the doorway, waving a duplicate of La Marsaillaise, the proudly communist newspaper that was sponsoring the championship. He was referring to supporters of the far-right Nationwide Rally, which seems to be more likely to win probably the most seats in France’s parliament.
“I assist the Nationwide Rally. We have to repair the nation,” countered Gonzalez-Gomez, blaming immigrants for Marseille’s excessive crime fee.
“It’s like the best way you had Brexit. Issues have been calmer after that. Now there may be delinquency, crime, and [Islamist] radicalisation. As for [President] Macron – he’s completed,” he mentioned, arguing that France ought to take again management of its borders from the European Union.
In Marseille, candidates for the Nationwide Rally (RN) – the far-right, staunchly anti-immigration social gathering that gained 33% of the vote within the first spherical of France’s parliamentary elections final week – have steered away from media interviews since their electoral success. Native press are referring to them as “phantom candidates”.
However their members are actively attempting to rally assist for his or her social gathering on-line.
“We’re the final bastion in opposition to chaos,” candidate Olivier Fayssat wrote on X.
“Much less immigration means fewer homeless individuals and more cash for the individuals of Marseilles,” Gisèle Lelouis, one other RN candidate, posted on the positioning.
Getty PhotographsWith its luxurious yachts, historical structure, and crowded, impoverished quartiers, Marseille has all the time been a chaotic melting pot of a metropolis, on account of its place on the Mediterranean coast and its historical past as a gateway to France and past.
Lately Nationwide Rally has constructed up a robust assist base throughout the south, however has all the time been strongly challenged by events from the left and the centre. This election has modified that stability, with President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist candidates already dropping their seats within the metropolis within the first spherical.
“Macron… just isn’t common right here in any respect,” mentioned Gilles Rof, the native correspondent for Le Monde newspaper, explaining that residents haven’t but felt the impression of the president’s multi-billion euro infrastructure mission for Marseille, and are, extra typically, in a temper to shake issues up.
Rof argued that racism lay on the root of a lot of the anti-immigrant sentiment in elements of town, and that RN was taking part in on individuals’s reliable considerations about crime.
“The idea of this vote [for RN] is clearly racism. [Their supporters say] there are too many immigrants and too many Arabic individuals. You may hear that on a regular basis. It’s out within the open,” he mentioned.
A lot of the crime is linked to Marseille’s highly effective drug gangs, which function – typically fairly overtly – in among the poorer suburbs north of town.
In a windswept neighbourhood one afternoon this week, a small crowd gathered to supply assist for his or her parliamentary candidate, a 20-year-old man of Algerian heritage.
“Entrance Populaire! Entrance Populaire! Amine Kessaci! Amine Kessaci!” individuals chanted, naming France’s new left-wing coalition and its younger would-be deputy.
Mr Kessaci’s social activism – targeted on tackling crime and on native empowerment – was influenced by the loss of life of his brother in a drug-gang-related homicide in 2020.
He mentioned migrants have been being scapegoated by the far proper for political achieve, and that poverty and unemployment wanted to be addressed as a precedence.
“This election… is a rendezvous with historical past. The extremists are on the gates of energy. [If RN wins] will probably be chaos, like what you had in Germany within the Nineteen Thirties,” he mentioned.
“We have to cease them waging a struggle in opposition to the poor, a struggle in opposition to foreigners. We have to deal with the drug traffickers and assist the marginalised.
“The far proper don’t have any plan, they only have anger. My mother and father selected this nation and I’m a Frenchman,” the younger candidate mentioned, earlier than racing off to satisfy the deadline to submit his utility to run within the second-round vote.
