How would I describe the experience of being a French citizen and a long-term transplant to the UK? Easy: it’s very bad for the nerves, especially at the moment. I love it, I really do! But I can tell it’s doing awful things to my blood pressure.
On Sunday night, I spent two and a half hours sitting on a friend’s couch, shovelling crisps into my mouth with increasing urgency, occasionally digging my nails into the insides of my hands. We were watching England play against Slovakia and, for the most part, it wasn’t going well.
I’d always loved Gareth Southgate and my friend had always doubted him, and so we argued about that a bit, to pass the time and distract ourselves. By the time Jude Bellingham scored his equaliser, I’d all but given up, and was staring at my phone.
Still, I jumped up, then watched the extra time through my fingers, terrified that Slovakia would score again, and it would go to penalties. That’s how I know I’ve become a real England supporter: I hate penalties now. I feel the weight of them on my shoulders.
In the end, of course, all was fine and England won. Southgate lived to fight another day, and so did we. It was a lovely sight, but one that could not distract me from the worrying political situation in France for long.
At 7pm, as the game was still happening, the exit poll showed that Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National had come first in the snap legislative elections. It wasn’t exactly unexpected, but it still felt upsetting.
I’d done my part by voting online, though I knew that the far right wouldn’t get anywhere in the seats representing French people living abroad, perhaps unsurprisingly. After some hours spent doom-scrolling through French social media and generally panicking, I eventually went to sleep.
I woke up and promptly resumed my obsessive, doom-laden reading, this time focusing on the electoral maps of France that had been published overnight. Thankfully, my beloved hometown of Nantes had given the far right a drubbing, with the seat where I grew up electing its united left coalition candidate on the first round.
This was one of the few silver linings. Everything else was depressing and infuriating in roughly equal measure. That’s probably how I’d put it. There is currently no way to know what will happen on Sunday, but it is fair to say that I am not relaxed about it.
Too much of it feels volatile and unpredictable; I look forward to spending that evening hiding behind the couch, having a gently developing panic attack. Well, and the remnants of a three-day hangover.
A week is a long time in politics, especially if your heart and soul are divided between two countries. There is one election I am massively looking forward to this week, and it should prove to be an adequate distraction.
In the supermarket yesterday, I began assembling my collection of snacks for Thursday evening. I don’t intend to go to bed until 6am at the absolute earliest, and so must be adequately prepared. There will be booze, obviously, but there must also be hourly cereal bars; I’m not in my 20s any more.
Before all of that, again, I will have to live through another stressful two hours, watching France play against Belgium. Our team is full of great players but we just haven’t been playing as a very cohesive side so far, and I worry that we’re going to crash out of the tournament early. It’s the last thing we need right now, as a country.
Then again, even if we do end up losing, I’ll still have England to cheer on, this time under a Labour government. That’s what it’s like, to be so French and yet so invested in British life; you get double the highs and double the lows. It’s worth it but god, it’s exhausting.
