Since the rise of the RN in the European elections, the campaign for the early legislative elections has been marked in particular by unabashed acts of ordinary racism.
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More than just slip-ups. Insulting letters, physical attacks, intimidation, threats… Accounts of racist or homophobic thoughts, words or attacks are piling up in the electoral context. Since the success of the National Rally in the European elections, and the rise of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s party in the legislative election campaign, racist speech seems to have become completely uninhibited.
In front of the Saint-Lazare train station, in the heart of Paris, Imène grabs her cell phone and rummages through her photos. The young woman laughs, and ends up showing a poster stuck on her front door on Monday: “It says: ‘Come on Jojo, get rid of the Arabs’ with a poster of Marine and Jordan.” “There are clearly people who took the trouble to come and mark this in front of my door. I have never been there. I have never had any problems. We all get looks… But problems of this type, I have never had any.”
Her parents did not file a complaint, explains Imène, in a new facade of laughter. And the young woman concludes: “It’s sad, but we’ll have to get used to it because this is only the beginning..”
The atmosphere is “heavy”, says Louis, who is originally from Cameroon. “Nothing direct” whispers the resident of L’Hay-les-Roses, in Val-de-Marne, but much more insidious acts. “You arrive, people were talking… And it stops, it moves on to something else. Even when it’s in a joke, you feel that there is a message that is being conveyed: go home. Maybe everyone should be at home, but where is ‘home’?” he wonders.
“My home is France!” repeats Meryem, in Vitry-Sur-Seine, in Val-de-Marne. “We’re at home, really!”she says angrily, before recounting her latest racist misadventure: “Yesterday, I was at the shopping centre, I saw a woman wearing a veil and the man shouted ‘ah well, these are the Arabs we’re fed up with, we can’t wait for them to go away'”. “I take it personally”she confides in a trembling voice.
“My name is Meryem, I am a direct descendant of immigration, my parents had eight children. There are four of us girls, four boys, all eight of us work, we all pay taxes, there is none of us who lives off society at all.”Myriam confides, before stopping. Her voice then chokes.
“I am angry because, despite everything, it is a country that has given us a lot, for which we are trying to give back. That there is fed-upness, that is understandable, and I think we all have it. But fed-upness does not mean heading towards stupidity.”
After a year 2023 marked by an explosion of racist, xenophobic and anti-religious offences, the social worker finally mentions her five-year-old daughter: “It’s mainly for her that I’m worried.”.