Idyllic towns turn to far right
PUGET-THENIERS (France) — Halfway between mountains and the Mediterranean, the southern French village of Puget-Theniers is old, idyllic and a picture of the quiet rebellion under way in rural areas.
In the first round of France’s presidential election, residents here, an hour’s drive from the city of Nice, voted overwhelmingly to cast the country’s rulers to the wolves.
Thirty-seven per cent of 1,300 ballots on April 23 were for farright leader Marine Le Pen and another 18 per cent for Communist-backed firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon.
A collection of other “anti-system” candidates from Trotskyists to a man who believes the European Union is a CIA-backed conspiracy won another 10 per cent.
“We’re fed up with our leaders favouring financial groups, insurance companies and bankers,” said Leo Vellutini, a 56-year-old having an afternoon drink with locals in the pretty square at the centre of the village.
He says the Le Pen vote has “spiced up our drinks together”. While not everyone agrees, no one at the table has anything good to say about France’s political leaders.
“They’ve screwed us over for 40 years,” gripes one retired man in his 70s wearing a cap and clutching a glass. They plan to vote for Le Pen in the runoff vote against pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron on Sunday.
“The village is like all rural areas in France, it’s doing badly,” said mayor Robert Velay, standing in bright sunshine outside the town hall with the foothills of the Alps behind him.
Farms and farming jobs disappeared years ago, while local shops have shut as people travel to supermarkets down the road towards Nice or order online.
The loss-making local abattoir is mired in red tape, he says.
“There are more people who own washing machines now, but do we live better?” he wonders aloud. “I think we need to look back at what worked well in the past.”
This sense — of bitterness about the present and nostalgia for the past — is found across rural France and expressed in the support for so-called “anti-system” candidates.
Puget-Theniers illustrates this faultline between urban and rural areas that has emerged more strongly than ever in this year’s election.
It also fits another major fracture between the east and the south of France where support for Le Pen is strongest, and the rest of the country.