{"id":83232,"date":"2024-06-28T10:23:12","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T10:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/28\/brittany-was-once-barren-ground-for-frances-far-right-no-more\/"},"modified":"2024-06-28T10:23:12","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T10:23:12","slug":"brittany-was-once-barren-ground-for-frances-far-right-no-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/28\/brittany-was-once-barren-ground-for-frances-far-right-no-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Brittany Was Once Barren Ground for France\u2019s Far Right. No More."},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/28\/multimedia\/28france-brittany-01-mlgc\/28france-brittany-01-mlgc-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Brittany Was Once Barren Ground for France\u2019s Far Right. No More.\" title=\"Brittany Was Once Barren Ground for France\u2019s Far Right. No More.\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">So many locals over so many decades have left Gourin in rural Brittany for the United States that Air France awarded the town a miniature Statue of Liberty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">So proud were residents of that binational identity, they fund-raised four years ago to have the statue recast in bronze. It sits in a place of prominence, in Gourin\u2019s main square, encircled by poles bearing international flags.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And yet, in the recent elections for the European Parliament, almost one-third of local voters opted for the far-right National Rally, a French party built on intense anti-immigration sentiment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis is an area that knows what it means to be immigrants,\u201d said Pierre-Marie Quesseveur, a member of the local Brittany TransAmerica association, who expressed surprise at the election results. \u201cWe are very open to all cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Equally stunned by the results, and worried about what might happen in the French legislative election that begins this Sunday, was the centrist mayor of Gourin, Herv\u00e9 Le Floc\u2019h. President Emmanuel Macron <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/09\/world\/europe\/france-european-elections.html\" title=\"\">announced the snap election<\/a> on June 9, after the far right trounced his party in the European elections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe all have some family in the United States,\u201d said Mr. Floc\u2019h from his office in city hall, which overlooks the mini Lady Liberty. While many of those \u00e9migr\u00e9es stayed in the United States, others returned to Gourin with nest eggs to restart life here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIn high school, half of my friends were born in New York,\u201d said Mr. Le Floc\u2019h, 61, who is also a dairy farmer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The northwestern region of Brittany has been the heartland of support for Mr. Macron and, for many years, a seemingly impenetrable rampart against France\u2019s far-right movement. The National Rally holds just 8 of 83 seats on the regional council, and in the region has not won a single election for mayor or for a seat in the national Parliament.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Locals proudly called it the \u201cBrittany exception.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The local culture of collaboration among parties didn\u2019t mesh with the party\u2019s politics of division, explained regional council president Lo\u00efg Chesnais-Girard. He calls the region \u201cfuriously moderate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Thomas Frinault, a senior lecturer of political science at Rennes 2 University who has studied the history of the National Rally in Brittany said the party\u2019s newfound popularity in the region is a sign that it \u201chas normalized and is emerging dominant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In some ways, Brittany would seem to be a hard sell for the far-right\u2019s message that France is plagued by high crime and that too many immigrants are soaking up scarce resources and jobs. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Le Floc\u2019h can\u2019t think of the last time there was a serious crime committed in Gourin, a town of 3,800 surrounded by cow pastures, a 50-minute drive from the coastal city of Lorient. Unemployment is so low, the nearby food processing factories sometimes have trouble recruiting workers, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHere we are not confronted by the problem of immigration,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have very few foreigners here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But talking with locals in bars, restaurants and a cultural center hosting Gourin\u2019s regular retirees\u2019 social gathering, it\u2019s clear the far right\u2019s political talking points and its grim view of the country\u2019s condition have taken root. There is also a bitter sense of abandonment by the ruling class in far-off Paris and a burning anger at Mr. Macron.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe\u2019s only for the rich,\u201d said Yolande Lester, 53, taking a break from the cr\u00eaperie where she works.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhy not try the RN?\u201d she asked, calling the National Rally by its French initials. \u201cThey\u2019ve never run the country before.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She added, \u201cThey can\u2019t be any worse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It\u2019s not that no one here ever voted for the party. Its numbers have steadily crept upward, notes Mr. Frinault. But few had admitted to voting for them, according to Jo\u00ebl S\u00e9v\u00e9n\u00e9ant, owner of the local radio station. \u201cNow, people are talking with no restraint,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">What he hears most is the feeling that life has not improved in the countryside for 40 years. The cost of gas and heating has gone up. Local hospitals continue to lose their full-time emergency services, so when the National Rally\u2019s president, Jordan Bardella, talks about how undocumented migrants can access medical care for free, it hits a nerve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe RN is surfing on this discontent,\u201d said Mr. S\u00e9v\u00e9n\u00e9ant. \u201cThere is a general fed-up-ness against Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Across from the town\u2019s 16th century Roman Catholic church, inside a small bar where locals can buy newspapers and cigarettes, two men drinking beer after a long day of manual labor listed the reasons they intend to vote again for Mr. Bardella\u2019s party.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Speaking of failed asylum seekers who remain illegally in the country, Thierry Beigneux, 55, said, \u201cThey commit crimes.\u201d \u201cNot here,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of crime here. But in France.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe don\u2019t have immigrants here,\u201d agreed Herv\u00e9 Pensivy, 62, a building contractor. \u201cBut they will come.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Frinault, the university lecturer, explained such feelings this way:<span class=\"css-8l6xbc evw5hdy0\">  <\/span>\u201cThere is a fear inspired through television, radio, the press and social media. You have a population that, without being confronted themselves by these issues, develop a kind of fear about them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The local National Rally candidate for Parliament, Nathalie Guihot-Vieira, acknowledges that the worries are not grounded in the area\u2019s reality, but in a gnawing fear the issues will appear here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere\u2019s a fear of chaos,\u201d she said during a short break from the grueling two-week campaign.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Given the party\u2019s lack of establishment in this section of Brittany, called Morbihan, Ms. Guihot-Vieira, a retired naval officer, has had to learn on the fly how to register as a candidate and how to campaign. She learned just recently that she <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ouest-france.fr\/elections\/legislatives\/video-3-questions-a-nathalie-guihot-vieira-candidate-dans-la-6-circonscription-du-morbihan-c5bdb618-6233-3669-a784-ccd50d9d5bba\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">taking over<\/a> her party\u2019s campaign efforts throughout Morbihan, after the person doing that job was fired.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One of party\u2019s central tenets is \u201cnational preference\u201d \u2014 reserving social benefits, subsidized housing, certain jobs and free access to medical treatment for French citizens and not non-French residents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe pay taxes, and we live in medical deserts and can\u2019t find doctors,\u201d Ms. Guihot-Vieira said, \u201cand yet they give medical treatment for free to foreigners.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen you talk like this, people call you a racist,\u201d she added. \u201cBut it\u2019s not racism, it\u2019s a request for equity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In its early years, the National Rally party was openly racist. Its founder and longtime leader, Jean Marie Le Pen stated that people of different races \u201cdo not have the same abilities, nor the same level of historical evolution&#8221; and was repeatedly convicted of making antisemitic comments and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1997\/12\/27\/world\/french-far-right-leader-convicted-of-slighting-holocaust.html\" title=\"\">publicly diminishing the Holocaust<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since his daughter Marine took over the party leadership in 2011, she has worked to expunge antisemitism from the party, even expelling her father. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, many are unconvinced that the party has fundamentally changed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Alex Flusen is one. He moved to Gourin for work just two months ago, but he\u2019s planning on making the long trip this weekend \u2014 six hours by car \u2014 to Paris, where he is still registered to vote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI\u2019m the grandchild of immigrants. I could never vote for the RN,\u201d he said. \u201cMy grandparents both survived Auschwitz.\u201d The party, he added, \u201cgoes against all the values of France.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Pollsters predict high turnout, and Mr. Floc\u2019h, the mayor, wonders what that will mean for Brittany and his little town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWas the European election just a protest vote?\u201d he asked. Maybe people will vote differently when it\u2019s the national election, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cBut maybe,\u201d he added, \u201cpeople will continue to protest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/28\/world\/europe\/france-brittany-far-right.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So many locals over so many decades have left Gourin in rural Brittany for the United States that Air France awarded the town a miniature Statue of Liberty. So proud were residents of that binational identity, they fund-raised four years ago to have the statue recast in bronze. It sits in a place of prominence, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/28\/multimedia\/28france-brittany-01-mlgc\/28france-brittany-01-mlgc-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6793,73468,5238,9290],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83234,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83232\/revisions\/83234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}