Julie Niel cannot contain her emotion. The 35-year-old, who works at a Leclerc supermarket, has just caught a glimpse of Marine Le Pen emerging from the Hôtel Normandy in Vernon. “I’m so excited,” says Niel, gripping her daughter’s hand while trying to take a picture with her phone of the French presidential candidate through a jostling crowd of journalists and supporters. “She’s the one who will save us from all this, from everything: the cost of living, the state of the economy, all the things Macron has done, petrol at €2 a litre, food prices.”
Vernon is on the banks of the Seine, about an hour’s drive from Paris and just over the border into Normandy. According to one of Le Pen’s advisers, it was the 46th village or town she had visited since September as part of her “go local” campaign against sitting president Emmanuel Macron.
Le Pen chose the town not for the usual walkabout and selfie-posing, but to make a televised speech about how she would run the country if she replaces Macron two weeks after they both beat 10 other candidates in the first round of France’s presidential election. A run-off between Macron and Le Pen will take place on Sunday April 24.