In L’Humanité, Communist member of the Occitania Regional Council Pascal Mazet paints a bleak picture of the state of France:
“This strategy smacks of a historical constant: when social injustices become too visible, when democratic divisions become too deep, some governments prefer to construct external enemies rather than resolve internal emergencies. … While minds are being prepared for war, public hospitals are dying, schools are suffering, wages are stagnating, rural areas are emptying and young people are searching for a future that is not being offered to them. … France must take a different path. A path of diplomacy, peaceful sovereignty, social justice, and national reconstruction through bonds rather than through confrontation.”