French Muslims and Immigrants Express Concern Over Le Pen’s Presidential Bid

"[...] If Marine Le Pen wins, it’s going to be tough for people with dark complexions like us. [...] Racial profiling is a daily occurrence. Especially here in the countryside," says Sofian, a French citizen of Algerian origin, who is discussing with Yanis on the Cieutat street. Like him, many foreigners or French citizens of Moroccan and Algerian origin express the same concerns. "On the one hand it’s sad, on the other, we get used to it," analyzes Abdelkader, a Moroccan who arrived in France at the age of 19 "with a job contract in Saint-Étienne-de-Fougères" and who has settled there without ever returning to Morocco.

At 72 years old, this Moroccan expatriate who has worked as a truck driver, in a slaughterhouse, in agriculture, at the PTT, and whose children were born in the bastide, fears that the election of the far-right candidate will turn his life upside down. "If she [Marine Le Pen] does what she says, it’s not good for us. But she wants to send me back to my country?" worries the septuagenarian. Aziz, a Spanish national street vendor born in Morocco, wonders if Marine Le Pen will, if elected, implement her project of a "referendum on immigration". "Her discourse on migrants, it’s to stir up. Once elected, if she is, will she do it?"