“It’s a big deal, of course it’s a big deal,” says Sophie Montanari, emerging from the Métro at Notre Dame de Lorette in central Paris to talk about her struggles to make ends meet.
“We never used to have trouble at the end of the month. Now we do. It’ll certainly influence our vote.”
A shop worker married to a plumber, with three children under nine, Montanari, 37, said she had recently gone back to full-time working from three days a week.
“I’m not sure the politicians realise how much more expensive life is now for families since Covid,” she said. “Almost everything – electricity, gas, basic foods like pasta. I’m not decided yet. But I’ll be looking carefully at what they plan to do about it.”
Emmanuel Macron, like Rishi Sunak, has called a snap election, which will be held over the two weekends that straddle polling day in the UK. Like the British prime minister, the French president is taking a gamble that at this stage does not appear to be going entirely to plan.
Voters, unhappy about the state of the French economy, are abandoning the parties of the centre in favour of those of the right and the left. Anti-government sentiment is running high.
Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist at Capital Economics, says: “France has suffered from all the problems the rest of Europe and the developed world more generally has been suffering from: the pandemic, the energy shock, relatively weak productivity, an economy that is not growing very much, insecurity.
“There are big economic problems that are contributing to people’s discontent.”
Assib Hamadi, 45, a deputy hotel manager, is one of those who have lost patience with Macron. He says the cost of living is his “number one priority” and one of the main reasons why he does not plan to vote for President Macron’s centrist party, as he had done in 2017 and 2022.
“He hasn’t done enough,” says Hamadi. “And it’s going to get worse this year – gas is going up in July, electricity later. They say inflation’s down but I’m certainly not feeling it. That’s the first job of a government, isn’t it? Make sure everyone can get by.”
Although France has recorded one of the lowest cumulative inflation rates in the EU since 2019, polls show the cost of living is voters’ top concern.
Politicians have taken the message on board, with all three main contenders in the snap elections – National Rally (RN), the left-green New Popular Front (NFP) alliance and Macron’s Renaissance – promising relief.