Montpellier
I have never voted in an election for president of France, not being French. But as a councillor in my commune, before Brexit brought my promising French political career to a screeching halt, disqualifying me from municipal politics, it was among my duties to count the votes of others.
It’s election day in France, the first round of the 2022 presidential race, and there are 12 candidates in the running. The top two will face off in a second round in two weeks. It’s expected that these will be the incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, and Marine Le Pen, in a rerun of the 2017 election that Macron won 66 to 34 per cent.
Many here are saying, as they have for as long as anyone can remember, that the elections are fixed. ‘They will never let us win,’ is this time a particular refrain of the Eric Zemmour camp, with ‘they’ being big media and its largely Macronist owners.
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