What did Lidl shoppers in France think about the election?

The day before elections in France, I visited the local Lidl supermarket. In a Paris neighbourhood filled with several fancy gourmet shops and at least three organic supermarkets, as well as the Carrefours, Franprix, Monoprixs, and Casinos that dominate the grocery business, the sole Lidl is known to be cheap.

I was visiting to buy Comte and some other French delicacies to bring back abroad ahead of my trip to Istanbul immediately after the French elections. Marine Le Pen had surged in late polls by focusing on the cost of living increases that have hit France and other nations. And judging by the prices, I had been seeing, she had a point.

At the Carrefour or Franprix, prices for the same cheeses I used to buy for two or three euros just a few months ago had jumped to four or six. Hence my impulse to economise at the local Lidl.

I was struck first off by the number of customers. Unlike fancier supermarkets, there was barely anywhere to move, amid customers and their many children. There are almost never any carts or baskets to borrow, and you’d best plan on an hour for a visit given the long lines and hassles at the checkout, with customers counting out coins or struggling to find debit cards with sufficient cash.

So many of the customers were using walking sticks; some were elderly, but others just infirm. A cacophony of languages was being spoken. I caught Turkish, English, Urdu, Spanish, a Slavic language or two and Arabic as well as French.

There was an argument between an elderly woman and a young man over someone bumping into someone. But more often than not, I noticed that people were being exceptionally gracious and kind. One man with a lot of items insisted that an elderly woman with only a few go ahead of him at the cashier.

I grabbed the last of a particularly inexpensive block of cheese, and an elderly man standing just behind me looked at it longingly. I handed it to him, and he declined, but I insisted. “Merci”, he said, shyly.

Emmanuel Macron went on to win elections the next day, but I wonder how many of the Lidl crowd voted for him. Perhaps they were convinced by Le Pen’s calls for economic change and were among the 13.3 million French who voted for her. But I think, judging by how exhausted the shoppers looked, they were probably among the 13.6 million who stayed home, or spent part of the day waiting in line at their local Lidl.

Yours,

Borzou Daragahi

International correspondent