Lorenzo Amblot, 37, homeless man, single, living in Reims, northeastern France, poses with his voting card in Reims on February 20, 2017.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"Financial aid should be focused on those who already struggle, instead of wanting to help everybody. There should be a special system to help those on the margins of society reintegrate, because receiving the Active Solidarity Income (a state payment for the jobless starting at 535 euros a month) is not enough. A special agency dedicated to helping those in need could be created instead. It should also be easier to have access to housing, so that we can rent more easily without having to provide so much paperwork and guarantors."
/ AFP PHOTO / FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEFRANCOIS NASCIMBENI (AFP)Adam Mersit, 20, studying for a physics and chemistry degree poses with his voting card on February 17, 2017 at Rennes 1 university in western France.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"The most important thing is that the president gives power back to the people, because we're no longer being heard. Even when we protest, we're not listened to. I want the next president to repeal the (new) labour law. I think it's a bad idea that everything is sorted out internally in companies because that could lead to pressure being put on employees. I also want the president to hold referendums and get the French interested in politics. There is not a single young person in the National Assembly despite the fact that people have a very different view of the world depending on their age. I don't see why someone of 30 is less important than a 50-year-old." / AFP PHOTO / JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEJEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER (AFP)Sabine Tholoniat, a 33-year-old mother of four who produces cheese in the Puy-de-Dome area of central France poses by her goats holding her voting card on February 15, 2017.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"I want the president to tackle the issue of agriculture and defend producers to the very end -- I'd like he or she to order that French products have to be used nationally in state-run canteens. Things are improving but not quickly enough. We don't want to live on subsidies, we want fair prices. In 2016, we were paid 27 euro cents a litre for milk while in big supermarkets consumers pay about 60 cents. We also want the next president to fight for standards to be harmonised at a European level. At the moment they are more drastic in France than in the rest of the EU and they are suffocating us." / AFP PHOTO / Thierry Zoccolan / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSETHIERRY ZOCCOLAN (AFP)Carine Delaby-Faure, 50, a lawyer who works in Lille in northern France, married with two children, poses with her voting card on February 16, 2017 in front of the Lille Courthouse.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"To be honest, my approach is more one of rejection than expectation. I don't have any particular expectation but I do fear what appears to be in the offing -- the election of a candidate who really scares me, Marine Le Pen, and we have to do everything possible to block that... Having said that, what I would like above all else is that we can be proud of the next president. Some French politicians make me ashamed and I dream of seeing the sort of transparency and exemplary behaviour that you get (from politicians) in Nordic countries. The other quality I'd require is that the president is fundamentally European and protects the most needy." / AFP PHOTO / PHILIPPE HUGUEN / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEPHILIPPE HUGUEN (AFP)Solange Desagher, a married with two children 47-year-old researcher on cell biology at a state-funded facility poses with her voting card at her lab on February 21, 2017 in Montpellier in southern France.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"The next president should draw on the expertise of French scientists in a number of areas when making decisions about the country. He or she should give researchers the resources to work, not necessarily by increasing research budgets but by better distributing available funding. The president should also support basic research, which can lead to big discoveries, by providing more funding for long-term programmes and commissioning fewer short-term projects. It is also important to support young scientists, by turning ad hoc contracts into permanent jobs in universities and research facilities, and employing them in senior civil service roles and in business." / AFP PHOTO / PASCAL GUYOT / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEPASCAL GUYOT (AFP)Jean-Loup Tiesset, 54, poses with his voting card on February 9, 2017 in his cafe-restaurant in Calais, near the former migrant camp nicknamed "The Jungle" in Northern France.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"My first wish would be that the next president harnesses the services of the state to change the taxes on businesses, especially our social security charges. As for the migrant crisis -- which caused a lot of human, social and financial difficulties for Calais residents \x96- the president should get in contact with neighbouring countries to ensure that the people of Calais no longer find themselves in the situation they have been in for the past 10 years. It's not right that British immigration checks take place on our soil. It's up to England to welcome migrants and manage the migrant flow that the country attracts." / AFP PHOTO / PHILIPPE HUGUEN / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEPHILIPPE HUGUEN (AFP)Mohamed Tria, a 50-year-old businessman and married father of four, who manages the lower-league football team AS Duchere poses with his elctoral card on January 6, 2017 on the pitch of his club's stadium in the central city of Lyon.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"I want the next president to introduce statistics on police brutality, in order to highlight a problem that is an important factor behind the violence in the suburbs. Because it is unconscionable that members of the security forces, who are supposed to be protecting us, could be contributing to the violence. That includes racial profiling during identity checks, which starts at 14-15 years old. I was a victim of this myself 40 years ago, which shows it's a real issue that runs deep and which youngsters in these neighbourhoods are growing up with, unfortunately." / AFP PHOTO / JEFF PACHOUD / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEJEFF PACHOUD (AFP)Romain Gu\xE9rineau, 31, a fireman, single with one child, poses with his voting card on January 30 in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire in the Indre-et-Loire area of central France.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"(I want the president) to implement the law on increasing accessibility for disabled people that was voted in in 2005 but still hasn't been applied, as well as introduce better reimbursements for handicapped people. A wheelchair costs 5,000 euros ($5,300) but only 558 euros of that is reimbursed. I would invite politicians to come and spend a week in a wheelchair reimbursed to the tune of 500 euros. I want policies from the next president that are social-based but not handouts. He should be beyond reproach, stick to his campaign promises and remain accessible to the people even after the elections." / AFP PHOTO / GUILLAUME SOUVANT / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEGUILLAUME SOUVANT (AFP)Marie Rouffet, 47, a fisherwoman currently training to be a mechanic, mother of 4, poses with her voting card on February 7, 2017 at the port of Le Guilvinec, northwest France.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"I don't have any expectations any more. We just go from disappointment to disappointment. Doesn't matter if they are from the right-wing, the left-wing, the centre, sideways, up, down, it's rotten to the core and the higher up the chain of power you go, the more corrupt you are and the more money you're siphoning off. What's more, the people that spit out our laws don't know the first thing about boats or fish. They've probably never been to sea. So the presidential election campaign doesn't interest me. Like all my fishing colleagues, we're just interested in fishing campaigns. Doesn't matter to me who's president, nothing will stop me fishing in an industry that still has a future." / AFP PHOTO / FRED TANNEAU / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEFRED TANNEAU (AFP)Nathalie Niort, 39 and a mother of three, poses with her voting card on February 2, 2017 outside the Guy Thomas de Riom hospital in Puy-de-Dome where she is a nurse in a cardiology unit.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"That he stops the decline in the hospital. We're on the verge of a catastrophe, we can't keep selling off health like this. We have to stop staff cuts. We don\x92t have enough staff. When things are going well, it's OK but when you're on your own and you have several patients that need to be resuscitated, which do you choose? We\x92re on the verge of institutional mistreatment: we're doing back-to-back treatments, taking blood. We're shattered and we are trying not to make mistakes in our dosages. When we get home, we feel we haven't really looked after our patients properly. It's very hard to live through. We\x92re putting the patient and the carer in danger." / AFP PHOTO / Thierry Zoccolan / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSETHIERRY ZOCCOLAN (AFP)Mouslimati Boina-Mze, 24, no children, going through a divorce, poses with her voting card on February 10, 2017 at her school in Marseille, southern France, where she is doing training at a college for people who have left school without qualifications.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"What I want from the new president is that he help young people to find work easily. It's hard, it really is. Today, even if you leave school with qualifications, you can only find a job that is badly-paid or demotivating. A job is the most important thing \x96- to pay the bills but also to be independent, to want to get up in the morning to do a job. What the new president needs to do is improve information for young people. Many people don't even know that there are local training centres for them. They stop everything and it's a shame." / AFP PHOTO / ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT (AFP)Jean-Yves Tanguy, 60, string instrument maker, married and father of three poses with his voting card on February 8, 2017 in his workshop of the city center of Caen, Normandy.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"I am hoping for him to recognise the importance of culture in a world dominated by the market and the cynicism of finance. Because culture allows us to lift humanity to a higher plane. I want him to develop the practice of music collectively because it's such a fabulous tool for integration. By doing music, one finds dignity and raison d'etre in society. I want him to harness his power for the good of justice, including social justice. That he fights segregation, exclusion and hate with all his might and wherever he finds it. I want him to have a certain stature, a certain dignity and that he stands up for values and a certain type of society. I want a president for whom words are more important than figures. Figures are important but they are technical." / AFP PHOTO / CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSECHARLY TRIBALLEAU (AFP)Gerard Cazorla, 59, married with three children, head of a tea-making plant near the southern city of Marseille that used to belong to Unilever and now operates as a cooperative, poses with his voting card on February 9, 2017, inside his Scop-Ti factory in Gemenos.
What should be the priorities of the next French president?
"The president should implement policies that benefit workers and develop the social economy. We've seen this sector growing in size. I want this sector to be developped as an alternative to capitalism which, to my mind, is the big problem today. We should promote the cooperative system, which gives everyone a voice and is more democratic because each voice carries the same weight. One man, one voice. One woman, one voice. That's the alternative to the capitalist system which is killing us." / AFP PHOTO / ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - RESTRICTED TO FRENCH ELECTIONS ILLUSTRATION PURPOSEANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT (AFP)
