April 24, 2012
What La Provence Had To Say About The Elections

La Provence is a regional paper that covers local topics of interest to those living in the five of the seven departements of Provence, Gard, Bouches-du-Rhone, Vaucluse, Alpes de Haute-Provence, and Hautes-Alpes. (Alpes Maritimes and Var are the other two.)

La Provence has, without fear or favor, given voice to Sunday's electoral results, in the region, which leaned 2-1 rightward, with Sarkozy and Le Pen in first and second place in each of the departements and Le Pen besting Sarkozy in one out of five.

Within the region, certain towns stand out: Bedarrides, where Le Pen received 41% of the vote. Port-de-Bouc, where Melenchon, at the other end of the political spectrum, received 36.47%, both figures representing the largest percentage for each in any district in France. In Saint Gilles, near Gard, where Le Pen received 25.51% to Sarkozy's 24.86%, native-born French voters and North African immigrants give their reaction to Le Pen's higher than expected numbers. The town of Arles, which stayed resolutely Socialist, amid a sea of Frontistes in the Arles region overall, congratulates itself on the high voting tallies for the Socialist and Communist candidates. Finally, in Tarascon, a Front National candidate offers her own analysis of Le Pen's success, and her own in the next legislative elections.

In Bedarrides, a village of 5,209 with little rime, the Le Peniste vote is explained as premptive: We are a village of Gauls! It's a matter of prevention! We don't want problems here, so we vote FN to prevent them. We are not troubled, but we act before it can happen."

In Port-le-Bouc on the Mediterranean, a community of about 18,000, the Communist candidate has traditionally done well, so Melenchon's success is not surprising. Many will vote the for Hollande, the front-running Socialist, but do so out of "republican discipline" with a view to later winning sixty seats in the Assemblee Nationale (France's equivalent of the House of Representatives), and forcing Hollande "to pursue a politics of the Left". Residents of Port-de-Bouc have suffered the consequences of closure of naval shipyards and the loss of 4,000 jobs. Unlike Bedarrides, "we are not a village of Gauls, we clearly hope that the French people might have a say in their future."

In Gard, where Le Pen achieved her only first-place finish in the first round, some Gardois are ashamed of the association. The FN has strong support in the region, as manifested by the election of a Front National candidate for Mayor in 1991. If Le Pen hadn't been first, I would have been surprised, says one voter. Another, without specifying for whom she voted, says It was a vote of we who are fed up, a way of slamming the fist on the table! Because we are sick of the 25 robberiies that take place here every week, sick of the thefts from our businesses, sick of watching "them" deal drugs in our city, sick of seeing "them" drive around in their fancy cars, while they don't work. --By which are meant "Arabs", or more specifically, North Africans.

Speaking for the Magrebine (North African) community Abdel, Mounir, Radouane and Keamel, seated at a cafe in a North African area in Saint GIlles strike a conciliatory note. People base their judgments on cliches, but they do not understand that our children do not want the same life we have, to work in the fields for a miserable salary. but there is no work for them. There is an ordinary racism here that would have you think that there is a lot of tension between the communities, but there is none. The North African community participates in the local culture, although we don't integrate. What keeps everything from boiling over? It's simple: it's called hypocrisy.

By contrast, politics in the town of Arles, where the Francois Hollande won easily, seem tame. Arles is an island of Socialism in a sea of Sarkozy and Le Pen voters in the larger Arles region. The big loser in the election there is Francois Bayrou of the Movement Democratique,, who received 2,500 fewer votes this year than he did in 2007 (French presidents serve for five years.) His numbers dropped from 13.53% to 5.34%, making him the biggest loser in the first round in Arles.

Finally, Falerie Laupies, Frontiste candidate for the Assemblee Nationale sees Sunday's vote as a legitimisation of the Front National's program, placing it on a par with the Socialist Party and Sarkozy's UMP. She iis running in Tarascon, a village near Arles, which is chiefly known for being where Soleiado, the manufacturer of ready-to-wear and home furnishings based on Provençal traditional patterns, is located.

Such a diversity of views within one region needs some explaining as voters for Le Pen and Melenchon have similar socio-economic backgrounds. In fact, a certain number of Le Pen's voters vote Socialist in the second round. Why? A pollster on television explains that for working class voters not attracted to membership in one of the hard-left parties (Communist, Trotskyist) are attracted to the patriotic message of the Front National. Le Pen having failed to win entry to the second round, a certain percentage of those voters will vote Socialist because the Socialist Party, rather than UMP, is closer to their thinking on issues like health care and housing, issues the French call le dimension social.