The French town showcasing far right's 'respectability strategy'

With France's far right set to win Sunday's parliamentary election runoff, voters across the country are wondering what life under a National Rally government would be like.

A small town in the north of the country already knows.

Henin-Beaumont, population 26,000, has been run by the National Rally (RN) since the former mining town voted in the far-right party in local elections in 2014, and then again in 2020.

It is often described as "the fiefdom" of RN heavyweight Marine Le Pen, an unassailable fortress of support, and a bridgehead for her national campaigns.

Le Pen, who was a local councillor in Henin-Beaumont between 2008 and 2011, last Sunday also won re-election as a National Assembly deputy, scoring a commanding 64.6 percent of Henin-Beaumont's vote.

Steeve Briois, Henin-Beaumont's mayor for the last decade, took over from a leftist administration tainted by corruption, and won re-election with a comfortable absolute majority.

"Mr Briois is sociable, loved and friendly," said party activist Charlotte Chabierski. "When there's a local festivity, he'll get up on stage and sing."

Local people, she said, were delighted with his record that included lower local taxes, less crime and a cleaner town.

"The quality of life is really good," said Valentin, a 30-year-old shop assistant who declined to give his last name. "We have a mayor who looks after his town and his co-citizens."

The local success story of Henin-Beaumont is a great help to Le Pen's "strategy of respectability", said Pierre Mathiot, a political scientist at the Sciences Po Lille university.

Briois had been "very quick to hide the more questionable aspects of the RN's behaviour", presenting himself as "a decent chap, everybody's idea of an ideal son-in-law".

- 'Save a region that is suffering' -

The Henin-Beaumont experience, meanwhile, had allowed Marine Le Pen to present herself "as a grassroots politician and not a Parisian", he said. "As somebody who will save a region that is suffering and by extension, save France."

In the aftermath of last Sunday's first round of National Assembly elections, Henin-Beaumont residents went about their daily business quietly. There was no noticeable festive mood after the voting triumph, and few people were willing to talk, a sign of widespread suspicion of visiting journalists.

"The vote is over, I don't have anything to say," said a pensioner waiting at a bus stop with her shopping.

"This is part of the RN's strength," said Ines Taourit, a councillor for the opposition Socialists. "They have managed to build a wall of silence in this town, an omerta."

This makes it harder to gauge the depth of what Le Pen's opponents say is widespread anti-immigration sentiment and racism in the party.

Except perhaps during this week's Euro 2024 match between France and Belgium, when a regular customer in a bar showing the game shouted "Too many immigrants!" when a shot by French-Cameroon player Aurelien Tchouameni missed the goal.

But the bar erupted in joy after Randal Kolo Muani, a French-Congolese striker, scored, securing France's spot in the quarter finals.

On fundamental issues such as the economy -- crucial in an area that is part of France's impoverished rust belt -- and local services, the RN would like their policies not to attract too much scrutiny, Taourit said.

The party's management had involved "the privatisation of almost all public services" such as nursery schools and swimming pools, leading to "a steep cut in purchasing power", she said.

"The voting booth is no test lab," she said. "We shouldn't walk into this trap, because in the end they will implement an ultra-liberal policy everywhere, just as they're doing in Henin-Beaumont," she said.

Some of the town's residents, meanwhile, profess deep scepticism towards politicians from all sides.

"They're all scumbags," said a man drinking in a bar in the town centre. "That's why I don't vote."

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