ONE word trips easily off the tongue in this mediaeval town on the river Rhone in southern France: Pourri. Rotten.
”I tell you. We are going 100% down hill. There is such a problem of insecurity. You can’t leave your car out at night. They are dealing drugs on the street corner. There aren’t enough police. It’s completely pourri.”
The speaker is Khalil Jaoudi (35) the Moroccan-born owner of the Le Taurin, bar in the town’s old quarter.
Here magnificent 18th century mansions have been renovated by the municipality and turned into social housing. Nearly a half of the inhabitants of the town’s historic core are of North African origin. Some locals call the area the kasbah.
In the first round of the presidential election Beaucaire scored a near national record, with 40% of voters choosing the far-right — 35% for Jean-Marie Le Pen, the rest for his erstwhile deputy Bruno Megret.
Now — in the wake of the unprecedented national protests against the far right — the voters of Beaucaire are making up their minds how to vote in Sunday’s run-off.
In the Le Taurin, bar, Jaoudi’s friend Francisco Gaonea is happy to admit that he voted for Le Pen first time round, but he will be choosing incumbent President Jacques Chirac in the second.
”I had to express my unhappiness with the main parties. Of the people who chose Le Pen here, probably only about a quarter actually believe in him. The rest are like me — they just wanted to give a kick to the system,” the 47-year-old builder says.
”I am going to vote Chirac and I am going to hope he gets a majority in the parliamentary elections in June so he can start doing things: I mean beefing up the police, cutting employers’ charges and slimming down the bureaucracy.”
Crime is the number-one issue here. ”As a professional I can say that things have got dramatically worse in the last couple of years,” says insurance agent Benoit Despierres (31) who has just taken a call from a woman who had her purse snatched in a supermarket.
”It’s not large-scale crime. It’s little things. Cars being vandalised, bags taken, people smoking pot on the street corner. But it’s spoiling everyday life. It all adds up to giving people the feeling that things are, well, pourri,” he says.
Despierres is a confirmed Chirac voter but unlike Gaonea he thinks support for Le Pen will hold up in Beaucaire on Sunday.
”I tell you why — because nothing in the last 10 days suggests that the message that people wanted to get across has been heard. Instead all we’ve had are self-indulgent protests by the left claiming that democracy is in danger,” he says.
Francois Savon, a 50-year-old self-employed businessman, agrees.
”I voted Le Pen first time round and I am going to vote for him again. And you know I am scandalised by they way everyone is saying 20% of the French are fascists,” he says.
”I am not in the least Le Pen-iste,” he says, warming to his theme. ”But we had to show this pourri class of politicians who have been there since the post-De Gaulle era that they are living in a virtual world.
”And if Le Pen only gets 15% on Sunday they’ll just pretend it’s business as usual.”
”Things have got to change,” says Pedro Teruel (37) a factory worker. ”And it won’t take very much. The crime problem is only a few years old. I know plenty of Arabs who voted for Le Pen because they are just as fed up as I am.
”And it’s not just crime. It’s the economy. In Spain where I come from there are nothing like the same taxes and charges. You can work hard and earn money. Here you’re not even allowed to do that,” he says.
Pessimism rules.
”On Sunday we’ll have Chirac back in power – a man who in any other country would have been having to answer before the courts,” says Savon.
”Of course Le Pen couldn’t be president. Within three months we’d have an explosion. But at least then the whole pourri system would go up in smoke.” – AFP
