Léo Batta lives in Marseille, in the south of France, and studies fine arts. He was already politically engaged before lockdown, but the pandemic has reinforced his views.

I come from Endoume, a neighbourhood of Marseille that sits on the coast. My mother is a researcher and my dad works for the regional council. I also have a place with my girlfriend near Cours Julien, a youthful and busy area in the city centre.

I’m a fine arts student in Luminy, in the mountainous Calanques national park, just south of Marseille. We’re a bit cut off from the world, right in the middle of nature. Wild boars always roam around there. I’m about to enter my third year. Last year I started painting, serigraphy and photography. It was supposed to be a year of discovery, but it was cut short by the pandemic. In mid March we packed our stuff, had our last day of school, and then lockdown started. I have been on holiday ever since.

My creativity has gone downhill over the past five months. Some teachers sent us emails with work to do, asking us to send pictures of our drawings, but we didn’t have any online classes like other universities. Other than that, I’ve done very little. I spent time online, played video games and had fun with friends. I’m disappointed that my school year was shortened, I had many projects, such as sculpting, working with clay, and making T-shirts. 2020 hasn’t been productive for me, I feel like I’ve wasted my time. My university only costs 560 euros a year and my parents put up the money, so I’m not worried about that at least.

One of the positive sides of lockdown is that I’ve spent more time with my parents – I’m an only child, and we do get along well. 

I’m really engaged in local politics here in Marseille. I attend meetings and go to protests. In June I took part in the Black Lives Matter protests against racism and police brutality. There were lots of young people and new faces. Most privileged people (and I consider myself privileged) don’t realise there’s an issue around racism in France. Things need to change for the better. 

I do also wonder if these protests were a bit of a trend because young people follow what’s happening in the US: trap and rap music, fashion and politics. The protests were also about Adama Traoré [a young French man of African origin who died in police custody in 2016 near Paris, in an incident that sparked protests], but he has been given less priority than George Floyd. I’m wary of people talking endlessly on social media but not doing anything in real life. 

My generation is quite aware of the environment, but only a small number actually vote or really get involved in politics. Maybe Covid will change things. The next French presidential election is two years away, and I will only vote if I need to block the far-right National Rally from winning. I sometimes think that if they did win, people would be forced to realise how bad things are – but that’s a dangerous game. I don’t know anyone around me who votes for Le Pen. I used to, but they blocked me on social media because of what I’d post. 

I don’t feel represented by those in power. Macron is a con-artist, a liar, who wants people to believe in trickle-down economics, which is plain nonsense. Macron is a rich man living among the rich, and he only serves the rich. He always shows contempt for the working class. He didn’t really take Covid seriously at first, but he did eventually surround himself with scientists, so he didn’t handle the crisis too badly in retrospect. He made some good decisions. 

Marseille is a very mixed city with a lot of inequality. The 2018 collapse of the Rue d’Aubagne building [which was located in a poor neighbourhood with many ethnic minority residents] was the prime example of this. We had a local election recently and now our new mayor is Michele Rubirola, [Marseille’s first female mayor, and its first left-wing mayor in 25 years], which is what I wanted. I’m hoping for more public spaces and places to welcome migrants, plus a greener city with less cars, more buses and metros. There’s a problem with public transport here.

Marseille has a reputation as a violent city. There are problems here including knife and gun crime, but it’s mostly fine. It happens in other places too. It’s a stereotype, an image people want to have of the city. To me the real issue is that women feel totally unsafe in the streets. Since lockdown ended it’s been unbearable. Girls can’t go out without getting harassed. 

My girlfriend got attacked two nights ago. She slapped a guy who’d made a sexist comment. She got beaten up by him, the group around him and four other guys. She fainted and is now concussed, and has trouble using her wrist and walking. The male friend she was with got stabbed in the arm. We feel conflicted about reporting it to the police, because they can be sexist too. I know girls who tried to report assaults but were turned away because they were drunk when it happened. 

I’m a straight white guy, and even I notice and get grossed out by men’s attitudes. There are a lot of parties I don’t go to anymore because I don’t want to be around men dancing so close to women. I have too many stories; it’s every day, every night, all the time.

My friends and I have been thinking a lot about what could be done to tackle it. I don’t have an answer. Maybe guys are frustrated because of lockdown. One solution could be self-defence, or grassroots organising to make this a community issue. If we can’t change harassers, we need to make it our responsibility to let them know they have no place in our streets. Maybe some of my female friends will write an open letter to Rubirola about this problem.

At the moment I’m not doing much during the day, apart from going to the beach with friends, doing some street art or going to friends’ countryside houses. I’ve also been doing odd jobs, such as painting and decorating, as well as dog sitting. I’ll also do the grape harvest at the end of the summer – I’ll be housed and fed for three weeks, and paid €700 on top of it.

People are indebted to the working class since Covid. There’s more awareness that it’s nurses, cashiers, truck drivers and hospital workers who keep the country running, not managers and decision makers. But young people still don’t really wear masks here, except on public transport. I went to a secret outdoors party last night with maybe 200, 300 people. Only 4 or 5 people were wearing a mask. 

My hope is that this crisis will push people to think twice about the system, get active in the fringes, and pay more attention to their local area. I think our biggest challenge for the future is to try and create a more equal society. There would be less insecurity and violence if there were less poverty.