The vote in Auxerre usually mirrors that of the whole of France and the battle lines are drawn between right and left. Lara Marlowetests local opinion.
Auxerre, in eastern France, is known for Chablis wine, which it celebrates every May 20th, a football club and a handful of factories that make yogurt, aircraft seats, car parts and batteries.
Since the 1980s, pollsters and journalists have studied this town of 38,000 at election time, because it closely follows the pattern of the country. As Auxerre votes, so votes the nation. "Auxerre characterises the true France, the measured, calm France of the provinces," says Jean-Pierre Soisson, a deputy in the National Assembly, regional councillor and former mayor who has dominated political life here for four decades.
In Auxerre, as elsehere in France, one gets the impression that there are at least two different countries. The division is visible: the right-wing France that will vote for Nicolas Sarkozy lives in the half-timbered houses of the picture postcard town centre, amid well-stocked boutiques, near the cathedral. The down-trodden France that supports the socialist Ségolène Royal can be found, literally, on the wrong side of the tracks, in the housing projects of Les Vauviers, and in the ugly tower blocks on the ridge above the city.
GUY FÉREZ, THEsocialist mayor, says the gap between rich and poor has deepened during five years of right-wing government: "There have never been so many BMWs and Porsches in the streets. And there have never been so many people on welfare. A lot of Auxerrois never cross the river, never see the tower blocks."
But everyone comes to the town centre. In a French tradition going back to the 18th century, they gather in cafes to talk politics. Those who find Sarkozy too abrasive and Royal incompetent will vote for the centrist François Bayrou. For a more emphatic protest vote, they'll choose the extreme right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, or simply abstain.
Soisson, the grand old man of local politics, was a founding member of the centrist UDF. With rare ideological flexibility, he worked with socialists - the present mayor was one of his deputies - and the extreme right-wing National Front. In 2002, he moved to the newly formed "big party of the right", the UMP. "The whole country has moved to the right," Soisson asserts, echoing statements by Sarkozy and Le Pen.
For Soisson, who is the same age as President Jacques Chirac, this election marks "the turning of a page", the handover to a new generation. The transition takes place in a mood of national crisis, which the former prime minister Alain Juppé has diagnosed as a collective nervous breakdown.
Eight days before the first round of the presidential elections, two-fifths of voters are still undecided, though 59 per cent believe - or fear - that the UMP's Nicolas Sarkozy will be elected. "The whole campaign has become a referendum for or against Sarkozy," notes Soisson. Using language that once characterised the National Front, he says immigration and globalisation are the causes of France's crisis. "There has been a loss of identity for the français de souche [French with French roots]," he contends.
In the town hall, Mayor Férez provides a different analysis of France's malaise. "France can no longer pretend she's a great nation," he says. "She is trying to define her place in Europe and the world. The French believe Europe is the death of the nation, so they turn in upon themselves." Férez grew up in the poor neighbourhoods across the river. "We weren't unhappy, because our parents worked hard and the 'social lift' functioned," he recalls. "We moved to better neighbourhoods, and eventually bought a house. Today, when you start in the housing projects, you stay there. I see toddlers in the street and I know they're going to be failures, because our society does not create opportunities for them. It's not just immigrants. The petits blancs [poor whites] are also caught on the bottom rung."
Voters are hesitating because "There is no visionary candidate," Férez says. "We need a de Gaulle, someone who inspires people. They're waiting for someone who embodies something, who gives the country hope, who can explain how to deal with globalisation. We need a shared sense of destiny. We need meaning."
Across the cobblestoned square from the town hall, Dominique Marie waits in the UMP office. If Nicolas Sarkozy wins the election, she believes he'll obtain a majority in the June legislative elections, and the momentum could continue into next year's municipal elections, when she hopes to take Férez's job as mayor of Auxerre.
Sarkozy's promised economic reforms will be painful for everyone, Marie claims. But, I suggest, measures such as lowering social charges while raising VAT and doing away with death duties obviously favour the rich. "When the fat become skinny, the skinny die," she shrugs. Trickle-down economics, Sarkozy-style. "The rich know how to avoid taxes," she continues. "It's the middle classes who've paid through the nose, and we're not going to take it any more." Marie encounters hostility when she distributes tracts in the market. "Life is growing more difficult for everyone," she explains. "It makes people aggressive."
The local UMP administrator, Christine Henrion, chimes in: "People are fed up with this campaign. No one has talked about anything else since September. Everyone will heave a sigh of relief when it's over."
THE "FREELOADERS" WHOfigure so prominently in UMP rhetoric congregate at the Le Malibu cafe in the Rue de Paris. Most are of north African origin. Karim Rani (23), has been on the dole for six months, after a stint at an automative parts factory. Although he is a French citizen, born in France, he says white Frenchmen will never consider him an equal. "If you're an Arab without a diploma, temporary jobs in the factories and periods on the dole . . . that's the best you can hope for."
Rani and his friends say they want to work, but claim no one will hire them. Thirty-three per cent of housing in Auxerre is reserved for the poor, higher than the national average. "They've stuck all the unfortunate people together," says Amin Mabrouk (19). "We live in boxes. At night, there's nothing to do, so we hang around in the entry to our building." The young men will vote for Ségolène Royal, but they feel it's futile. "We know very well who will win," says Mabrouk. "Nico. I'm sure it's going to be him; that's the way things are in France."
"It's going to be a mess," Rani predicts. "If Sarko wins, it's almost as bad as if Le Pen won. You saw what happened [in weeks of rioting] in 2005. It was because of Sarkozy, because he said he would karcheriser us [wash with a power hose]. It'll start all over."
At 25, Abdel Rahim is the oldest of the group. He is training to become a bus driver, and says he's determined to improve his lot.
Royal has promised to raise the minimum wage to €1,500 a month; one reason he and his family will vote for her. "Sarko is too much of a bruiser," he says. "I'd be afraid to put him in charge."
Next door to Le Malibu is a former cinema called Le Bistrot du Palais, where the UMP and socialist parties hold meetings. Gérard Delorme, an editor at the local newspaper L'Yonne Républicainwho has chronicled local political life for 26 years, is just finishing his lunch of boeuf bourguignon.
The falling standard of living is the main concern of voters in Auxerre, Delorme says. "Prices shot up with the euro, and salaries didn't keep pace. Now fuel costs have risen to the point were people scrimp on winter heating. Sarkozy's programme will worsen the misery.
"People are resigned, fatalistic," Delorme adds. "They want change, but they're afraid of it. That's the French paradox; they want things to move, but carefully." Some 31 per cent of Auxerrois abstained in the last election, the same as the national average. Only 21 per cent say they will abstain this time.
THEY INCLUDE JOSEPHCarino, the owner of the Bistrot. "I'm too old to believe in fairy tales," he says.
"These people have already been in power, and they did nothing. I don't vote because I don't want to waste my time." The owner of Le Biarritz cafe, near the town hall, is a former football player named Jacky Gouraud. At Le Biarritz, it's politics, morning, noon and night. "People still don't know how they're going to vote," Gouraud says. "We had a left-wing president for 14 years [François Mitterrand, from 1981 to 1995] and a right-wing president for 12 years [Jacques Chirac, since 1995], and we've ended up back where we started."
What France really needs, Gouraud says, is a kick in the derrière. "Somebody has to say: 'Okay you guys. Party's over. You're going to work 48 hours a week, and take four weeks' vacation' (compared with 35 hours and six weeks at present). In Germany, they've been told they have to work more, and they're ready to sacrifice for the nation. Here, people don't want to get out of bed in the morning."