In a small eastern French town, residents fear that 'what happens elsewhere will happen here' (2024)

Christiane is used to sitting on a bench. It's the one opposite her apartment, right beside the old school in the eastern French town of Seloncourt, along the main road that runs through the town. It's this 85-year-old widow's daily treat, a breath of fresh air in this town of 6,000 inhabitants, located between the Stellantis (ex-Peugeot) factories in nearby Sochaux-Montbéliard and Switzerland, to the east. Christiane has never worked for a living. She raised her three sons and, like her husband, has always voted "on the right." In France's upcoming snap elections, she will be voting for Emmanuel Macron's coalition. Danielle, who sat next to her that day to have a chat, will not. Her vote will go to "that young guy, Jordan." Just like 43.4% of Seloncourt's voters, who already voted for Jordan Bardella, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party's candidate in the European elections.

It wasn't the first time that 75-year-old Danielle had cast an RN vote at the ballot box. She does so with an eye to her modest pension – she spent her entire career working for Faurecia, France's second-largest automotive supplier – and also "to those who do nothing, who break everything, and to whom we give." Immigration is another area of dissatisfaction for her. "I worked with [immigrants] 40 years ago, and they were fine. But there are more and more of them, and some of them lack respect, so they really have to adapt," she explained.

Nicole said more or less the same thing. This 76-year-old pensioner meets up with friends every afternoon on the banks of the Gland, the river that runs through the town. She'll be voting RN, as she's grown accustomed to doing, because "things have to change." Macron? "He's one of the upper crust, his promises are nothing but hot air." Nicole spent part of her career at "la Peuge," as the car plant that supplied employment to the entire region is called there. She took a break to raise her children, and then worked as a cleaner and assisted the elderly. She receives a pension of €1,500 a month. "The artists who say 'vote like this' should just give us their pay and take our pension," she said.

The fear that 'what happens elsewhere will happen here'

Retired people make up a third of the town's inhabitants. While Macron topped the votes there in the second round of the 2017 presidential election, RN candidate Marine Le Pen came a long way ahead in Seloncourt in both rounds of the 2022 election. The local MP, Géraldine Grangier, is also an RN member. The mayor, 75-year-old Daniel Buchwalder, a right-wing independent, couldn't really explain the RN's deep roots here. "We're more of a middle-class town. There are no large housing estates, no urban rodeos," referring to the dangerous motorbike driving that takes place in some French cities. "A car burned down once, in 1998. There's a bit of rowdiness from young people, but you can't say it's a deprived area." What the mayor perceived was more a "feeling of insecurity" than a reality, a fear that "what happens elsewhere will happen here." He also spoke of his constituents' "irritation" concerning immigrants.

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