hAlthough UEFA prohibits political expressions under penalty of fines and possibly even suspension, French captain and star player Mpabbé decided to call on young people to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
During the press conference prior to the first match of the Euro Cup in France, he warned that “the extremes are in danger of taking power.” “We must care about the destiny of our country and defend our norms and values: diversity, tolerance and respect.”
Mbappé’s call also applies to Brittany. People there always voted moderately left or right, said European commentator Saskia Dekkers, who traveled to the region, on Monday afternoon. News time. But down-to-earth Bretons have also fallen for the radical right rhetoric of the Rassemblement National.
Marine Le Pen’s party won 25 percent of the vote in Brittany in the European elections, a landslide political victory. A member of the regional council, sitting at a table in the RN party office, is naturally delighted.
In a picturesque fishing port, where a shrimp boat has just docked, Dekkers talks to the fishermen, who are increasingly looking forward to the Rasseblement National. The disappointment with Macron is great. ‘He acts like a king; he does what he wants,” says a woman in a Breton sweater. In a supermarket parking lot, a woman thinks that Macron lives in “a bubble”: “he doesn’t know what it’s like to live on a minimum wage or a small pension.”
More France in what is special and compelling D-Day: The Unheard Tapes (EO, NPO2), which tells the story of the largest maritime invasion in history, based on previously unbroadcast audio interviews with eyewitnesses. These recordings are lip-synced by actors playing the (very young) American, British, German and French soldiers, thus bringing the war to life in an original way.
“What did they tell you beforehand about what to expect?” an interviewer asks a young African-American man in the introduction to the BBC documentary. “Damn, they would have been that honest.”
His testimony and that of others is reinforced by archival footage; bombers, gliders, paratroopers and ships packed with soldiers and equipment crossing from England to occupied France in the dead of night.
Exciting. Frightening. Although the soldiers, often only 17 or 18 years old and full of bravado, adrenaline and nerves, found it exciting “in a good way.” A young soldier says that he suffered from nerves, ‘but from excitement’.
Even as they fought, some felt no fear. “You keep going,” says one soldier, “even though your friends are dying left and right, you believe you will survive.” The fighting at Benouville Bridge has barely begun when he sees Den Brotheridge, a colleague of his platoon, die. Brotheridge left behind a pregnant wife.
