Anina Ciuciu, a 27-year-old law student who once begged for centimes, is vying to become France's first Roma senator on Sunday Sep 24,2017
Ciuciu says she wants to "pave the way" for other Roma, a minority who have long been marginalised in France where some 20,000 of them live in hundreds of shantytowns around the country.
"I was a beggar, I was constantly humiliated," Ciuciu told "My story shows that anything is possible."
Ciuciu was seven when she and her family left post-Communist Romania at the height of an economic crisis.
Her accountant father, mother and their three daughters crossed the former Yugoslavia on foot at a time when the fields were still strewn with mines laid during the Balkan wars, eventually making it to Rome.
"We risked our lives like today's migrants are doing," Ciuciu said.
The family endured six months in squalid conditions in a huge refugee camp on the outskirts of Rome before heading to France.
"My father wanted to give us a future in the land of human rights," said Ciuciu, who has waist-long curly dark hair.
But in France, the family was refused asylum, and they resorted to begging.
One day in Bourg-en-Bresse, a town near the eastern city of Lyon, an encounter with a schoolteacher changed the course of their lives.
Jacqueline de la Fontaine took them under her wing, helping them to fulfil their dream of enrolling the girls in school.
Ciuciu, described by the teacher as determined and gifted, learned French and graduated from high school with top marks, before entering Paris's prestigious Sorbonne university to study law.
Not a token
In 2013, she wrote a book called: "Je Suis Tzigane et Je le Reste" which loosely translates as "I'm a gypsy for good" in a move that she says helped her obtain French nationality. So far, she is the only member of her family to do so.
If elected, she says she does not want to be "the token Roma" in the French Senate but a symbol.
"It would be historic for a young French woman of Roma origin to be elected, especially in the Senate, which is mostly made up of men and where the average age is 64!"
A total of 171 of the 348 seats are up grabs in the Sunday's ballot when elected lawmakers -- parliamentarians, mayors, local councillors -- cast ballots for the upper house.
But Ciuciu's chances of winning are thought to be slim as she is a candidate for the small leftist Notre Avenir (Our Future) party, and larger parties hold the advantage.
Pierre Chopinaud, who heads Roma advocacy group Voix des Rroms, said Ciuciu's candidacy was "very late" for France, noting that there are already Roma lawmakers in central European countries and in Sweden.
"But it is the beginning of something," he said.
Note
French Senate Vote Is Blow To President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Party,Conservative Keep Majority
President Emmanuel Macron suffered his first electoral setback on Sunday when his Republic on the Move (LREM) party won fewer seats than expected in elections for the French Senate
The vote, in which about 171 of the Senate’s 348 seats were up for grabs, consolidated the Senate’s existing conservative majority.
But the Socialist party, which was crushed in last June’s legislative elections, did well in the vote, provisional results provided by the French Senate showed.
The results could complicate Macron’s plans for constitutional reforms and come as his popularity is declining, just four months after his election in May. His approval ratings have dropped considerably in opinion polls, dragged down by labor reforms and planned budget cuts, including a decrease in housing aid for students.
LREM, which hoped to win 40-50 Senators, ended up securing 23, and will be counting on alliances with lawmakers from other parties to back the government on a case by case basis
The Senate’s conservative majority is now composed of some 150 members of The Republicans party, confirming the Senate as a counterweight to Macron, even if the National Assembly, where Macron has a clear majority, has the final say on legislation
“Voters clearly showed they wanted a parliamentary counterweight, which is in my view vital to a balanced democracy,” Gerard Larcher, the President of the French Senate said
Macron’s LREM was not expected to win a majority partly because of the electoral system. In elections for the Senate, only mayors and regional councilors and not the general public vote and Macron has plans that are unpopular with many local councilors. A number of local officials are unhappy with his plans to cut subsidies to local authorities
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