20 The Sunday Times May 1, 2022
WORLD NEWS
thing is closed, supermarkets are operat-
ing on delivery only. You’d almost rather
stay at home. Freedom has taken on a
new definition.
The first thing I do when I wake up is
check a group chat with the residents of
my building to see what type of Covid test
I need to do. Sometimes, I’ll have to go
downstairs and wait in a long queue
around the block for a PCR test. Other
times, I’ll open the door to find a self-test-
ing kit waiting. I might even have to do
both.
Once Serena and I were woken at 3am
by a loud banging on my door and orders
to do a surprise PCR test. When I asked
the hazmat suits why it was so late, the
only reason they could give was that
there had been a positive case in my
building recently.
Known as “Big Whites” they knock so
loudly that you can hear it floors above so
you can’t get back to sleep. During lock-
down, you do not want to hear knocking
on your door. Usually, it means that
you’ve done something wrong or you’re
being shipped off to one of those infa-
mous “homemade” facilities, where
hygiene is supposedly worse than the lav-
atories after a music festival. People here
are more afraid of those quarantine cen-
tres than getting Covid.
After testing, I look in my fridge to see
whether I have enough food for the week.
This is the main priority of the day, every
day. Food insecurity started to kick in
when lockdown was supposed to end —
three weeks ago. I guess I was naïve then
to buy supplies for only five days. Since
then, I’ve tried waking at 6am every dayThese days I wake to the chirping of birds
and, although it is pleasant, it is also
incredibly abnormal. I live in Jingan, a
district in the middle of Shanghai, a city
that supposedly never sleeps. For the last
30 days, it has been a ghost town. The
only sounds I hear are an ambulance
driving past and people downstairs com-
plaining about the situation. There is a
palpable eeriness about it all.
If that wasn’t crazy enough, I’m also
waking up next to a girl — let’s call her
Serena — whom I met on a dating app a
few days before unexpectedly getting
locked down in my apartment. She
stayed over and the next morning secu-
rity guards told her no one was allowed to
enter or leave. What was supposed to be a
five-day citywide lockdown has turned
into more than 30 days stuck inside with-
out an end in sight. So Serena has been
stuck with me. We might even have our
wedding in lockdown... Just kidding.
There is no typical day in lockdown.
Rules change all the time. Your experi-
ence is largely dependent on where you
live — not just your district, but your spe-
cific building. If there is a confirmed
Covid case in my building, I won’t be able
to leave it for seven days. If there’s a case
in my neighbourhood, I won’t be able to
leave my neighbourhood for seven days.
Everything resets when there is a new
case. The worst part is that I’ve got more
than 60 buildings and 20,000 people in
my neighbourhood so it could be a while
before I am let out into the city. Not that
there’s anywhere to go. Almost every-
Mike Liu Shanghai
‘Big Whites’ bang on doors at 3am to
test for virus in dystopian Shanghai
As China relentlessly pursues its zero-Covid policy, those still trapped in lockdown also fear being sent to quarantine centres
It’s almost as if they’re trying to tell us
through these packages to prepare for
the long haul.
You don’t want to get ill. Most hospitals
are closed. There are no taxi drivers out-
side to get you to the few that are open.
Some hospitals take you only if you arrive
by ambulance or require you to have a
valid test result (not everyone gets tested
every day). A lot of people who need
medical attention won’t get it. This is one
of the main sources of the horror stories
that I see on social media.
My feed is flooded with people sharing
posts revealing the ugly truth of what’s
really happening. I see videos of people
gathering outside their front gates to pro-
test about a lack of food, people banging
pots out of their windows in defiance of
draconian restrictions. This type of con-
tent is taken down as fast as it is uploaded
for “violating regulations” but netizens
will always find ways to stave off the cen-
sors, even if just for that little bit longer.
Sometimes, the truth must come out.
Then it’s night time again. I’ve proba-
bly spent the whole day trying to secure
food, mostly to no avail.
As I’m lying in my bed hungry and
mentally exhausted, I make sure that my
alarms are set to try my luck again the
next morning. I’ve learnt to be grateful
for what I have at this moment and having
Serena around has kept me sane. It may
not be what “normal” looks like but it
sure is better than what others are going
through in this city.
Editorial and Dominic Lawson,
page 24Frustrations boil
over in Shanghai,
top left, as the
hazmat brigade
sprays
disinfectant,
sends out medics
and directs robot
supply vehiclesI spend
the
whole
day
trying to
secure
foodto buy goods online before the daily win-
dow snaps shut. The problem isn’t a
shortage of food, it’s a shortage of deliv-
ery drivers trying to service more than 20
million people locked in their homes.
They get booked out within seconds of
stores opening.
The best way to secure food is group
buying with the other residents in my
building. Every building has “captains”
who volunteer to notify their neighbours
of the constant rule and restriction
changes and most importantly, help find
food. The quality of that food is highly
dependent on how well-connected your
captain is. My friends have been able to
get cakes and Shake Shack burgers while
my building can’t even get fresh meat
delivered on time.
Food anxiety has taken on a new
meaning in lockdown. I find it impossible
to plan ahead — you buy what you can get
and worry about the rest later. Some-
times it results in surpluses. This is where
bartering with your neighbours comes
in. Serena and I have swapped a frozen
chicken for potatoes and spring onions,
cucumbers for olive oil and two cans of
Coke for foil. Coca-Cola has become one
of the most sought after commodities in
this “black market”.
You might ask where the government
support is. Well, it all depends on your
district — some get packages that are bet-
ter quality than others. Since the start of
lockdown, I’ve received four “official”
care packages. The first was also the only
one with fresh food (some vegetables
but no meat). The most recent was lava-
tory paper and dishwashing liquid.ALEX PLAVEVSKI/EPA ; XU HEDE/VCG/GETTY IMAGES; CHEN JIANLI/XINHUA/ALAMYthe eighth time that defeat
has hit the Le Pen name.” He
then called for the two parties
“to forget their quarrels” and
“unite their forces”.
Supporters of the National
Rally were appalled. “When
you want to go to someone’s
house to discuss something,
you don’t urinate in front of
the door before you ring,”
said Gilles Pennelle, head of
the party in Brittany.
Marine Le Pen swiftly ruled
out any deal with Zemmour,
but the elder Le Pen believes
they will be obliged to work
together by France’s two-
round electoral system. “If
not, they will only be
disappointed,” he said.
But what of the third
politician in the family, his
granddaughter, Marion
Maréchal, 32, who dismayed
her aunt by backing
Zemmour during the
campaign and is reported to
be planning to stand for the
latter’s Reconquest! party.
Le Pen was surprised by
what he called his
granddaughter’s
“unexpected” and
“incomprehensible” move,
though declines to label it a
betrayal, as others have done.
Heavily pregnant with her
second child, she pops in to
see him, he says.
“Marion Maréchal is the
jeune garde (young guard),”
he said. “She has great
possibilities. I think it is
natural that she should
be a candidate [in next
month’s elections].” For
which party? “For her aunt’s,
of course.”
@Peter_Conradi(de-demonisation), renaming
it and steering it more
towards the mainstream. Her
latest campaign concentrated
on the cost-of-living crisis,
although she also proposed a
public ban on Muslim
headscarves.
That path led to a personal
and political rift with her
father, who was expelled in
2015, although they appear to
have made up. So did her
performance this time
vindicate her decision to
detoxify the party? “There
were various factors that
worked in her favour,” he
replies. The “quality” of her
campaign was important, but
so too was the fact that much
of her opponents’ fire was
drawn by Zemmour, whose
far more overtly radical
stance turned him into a
“lightning rod”.
“Marine was seen as being
more moderate compared
with a candidate who put
forward identical ideas but in
a much more energetic
manner and who was seen as
more brutal by his
adversaries,” he said.
Le Pen has known
Zemmour since he was
starting out as a young
journalist in the 1980s and
has continued to see him. He
was impressed by the
“elegance” with which he
urged his supporters to
switch support to Marine Le
Pen after he was eliminated in
the first round with just 7 per
cent of the vote.
Less elegant was the writer
turned politician’s
observation after the second
round: “Alas, alas, alas, this isLeaning back in an armchair
in his mansion on the
outskirts of Paris, the
godfather of the French far
right says he believes the
party he founded 50 years
ago is on its way to “complete
victory”, even if, aged 93, he
may not be around to see it.
It is a week since Jean-
Marie Le Pen’s daughter
Marine, 53, was beaten by
Emmanuel Macron in her
third attempt to win the
French presidency. She was
widely mocked for calling her
41.5 per cent vote share in the
run-off “a brilliant victory” —
but not by her father. Despite
their many differences over
the years, he thinks she
should regard the result as a
“glorious” triumph.
“It was a victory if you take
into account the considerably
different means she had at
her disposal compared with
Monsieur Macron as
president of the republic,”
said Le Pen, whose views
have made him one of the
most reviled figures in French
politics. “In my opinion the
result is promising for the
future, which is key. When
you are at that level, you are
getting closer to a majority
and to complete victory.”
Le Pen declines to say
whether he believes his
daughter should run in thenext presidential election in
2027 or make way for her
former partner, Louis Aliot,
52, a leading figure in their
National Rally party, or the
party’s acting president and
rising star, Jordan Bardella,
26, who insists the Le Pens
“don’t own the movement”.
The first challenge,
though, is the parliamentary
elections, beginning on June
12, in which Macron’s rivals
are hoping to strip him of his
majority in the Assemblée
Nationale, amid a broad re-
alignment of French politics.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 70,
the far-left anti-capitalist
candidate who finished third
in the election, is trying to put
together a “popular union”
dominated by his France
Unbowed party. Le Pen
believes his daughter should
do the same and form a pact
with her far-right arch-rival
for the presidency, Éric
Zemmour, 63.
Le Pen Sr entered
parliament in 1956 and the
former paratrooper has been
convicted several times for
hate speech — including
dismissing the Nazi gas
chambers as a “detail of
history” — and for inciting
racial hatred. During an hour-
long interview in his
imposing study, he is sharp
and laughs often, making no
attempt to tone down his
more repugnant views.
“What did I say that was
scandalous?” he says when I
ask if he regrets downplaying
the Holocaust. “If it wasn’t a
detail of the history of the
war, what was it?”
He has long admiredVladimir Putin and still does,
despite his invasion of
Ukraine. Le Pen is sceptical
about reports of atrocities by
Russian soldiers there. Nato,
he believes, is to blame for
expanding up to Russia’s
borders, and he is genuinely
concerned that the war will
turn into a nuclear
conflagration. He is also wary
of America, saying: “The
United States is our friend but
not our brother.”Le Pen’s lavish house in
gated Saint-Cloud, built for
the right-hand man of
Emperor Napoleon III and
willed to the politician by a
wealthy benefactor, was for a
long time the National Front
headquarters, epitomising
the intertwinement of his
party and his life.
It was here that he brought
up his three daughters after
they were bombed out of
their Paris apartment. Yann,
58, the middle one, still lives
upstairs. Marine moved out
in 2014 after one of her
beloved cats was reportedly
killed by her father’s dogs.
Their mother, Pierrette,
86, who posed nude for
Playboy after her
acrimonious breakup with
Jean-Marie in the 1980s, now
lives in a building in the
grounds. Le Pen uses the
house only as an office and
lives three miles away with
his present wife, Jany, 89.
Despite — or perhaps
because of — his extreme
views, the party Le Pen
founded in 1972 as the
National Front has grown
steadily in popularity. He
polled just 0.74 per cent in
1974 in the first of his five
attempts at the presidency.
By 2002, he reached almost
17 per cent, enough to propel
him into the second round, in
which he was crushed by
Jacques Chirac when a
“Republican front” united
against him.
Marine Le Pen, who took
over as leader in 2011, has
since more than doubled
support for the party through
a policy of “dédiabolisation”PETER
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a pJean-Marie Le Pen backs a
far-right electoral pactGlorying in his daughter’s success, Le Pen Sr
spies ‘complete victory’ for the far right