Before this Sunday, June 30, no candidate from the National Front or the National Rally had ever made it past the first round of the legislative elections in Brittany. On July 7, they will be present in the second round in 26 of the region’s 27 constituencies, with five candidates even qualifying in first place.
A situation to which Loïg Chesnais-Girard, president of the Brittany region, does not want to remain indifferent. The one who left the Socialist Party after the Nupes agreement in 2022 due to the presence of La France insoumise calls for a republican barrier against the arrival of the RN in power, judging that it is an “absolute emergency”. All while castigating the “hypercentralized” policy led by Emmanuel Macron since 2017, according to him responsible for the distress of many citizens in the country.
L’Express: How do you analyse this historic breakthrough of the National Rally in Brittany?
Loïg Chesnais-Girard: During the European elections, citizens expressed dissatisfaction, anger and distress. The president asked them to confirm their feelings, and they did so forcefully, with this wave that affects all territories. Brittany started from a little further away, so the damage is perhaps less significant. But this wave is there, like everywhere else. We had felt for some time that the National Rally, in its conquest of power, was targeting Brittany. It was looking for the most vulnerable places, where there were the fewest votes given to the RN, in a way the most important market shares to recover. We saw them coming, whether in fishing, in agriculture. But also in very specific situations, as we experienced with the migrant reception centre in Callac. The RN has been constantly battering Brittany for some time.
And then, our region is not impervious to the anxieties of the world. Like everywhere, we also have difficult ends of the month for many people, single-parent families who work full time and cannot cope, climate anxieties that threaten. There is a form of exasperation that is expressed, on the public services that are not there or are in decline. On all the promises made in Paris, and which do not come down to the territories, whether on schools, health, transport, ends of the month, purchasing power. All this generates anger and mistrust. These legislative elections are the failure of political showbiz, which is out of touch with the real life of the towns and the countryside, out of touch with the real life that we live here.
Since 2017, Emmanuel Macron and his camp had always achieved very good scores in Brittany. Doesn’t this surge of the RN also reflect those disappointed with Macronism, especially outside Paris? ?
In 2018, Emmanuel Macron came to give a speech in Quimper. He told us that he wanted to draw inspiration from Brittany for France. He spoke to us about the strength of the territories, the capacity for initiatives, and the full confidence he had in us.
“Individualism undermines our cohesion and our desire to live together”
But behind that, what did we get? Very centralized decisions. If, every time I have a problem, whether on the island of Ouessant, in central Brittany or in Fougères, I have to wait for the president or a minister to read the text message to get an answer, even to respond to simple situations… We are walking on our heads. That is not the agile Republic, which responds to the concrete expectations of citizens. The Republic is not just a president of the Republic and a government. It is also all the elected representatives of the Republic, the different assemblies. A municipal council, a mayor, is just as noble as a regional president or a minister. And we may have to hear it.
Has this divide between Paris and the rest of the country worsened over the last seven years?
Let me give you an example. It has been seven years since Emmanuel Macron was elected. Not once has the President of the Republic brought together all 18 regional presidents from mainland France and overseas. We have been received by the Prime Ministers, that is true. But under previous presidents, up until Jacques Chirac, regional presidents were received at the Elysée. This is symptomatic of a central State that is afraid of its territories. But what are we afraid of?
All this is not insignificant. Because this hypercentralism demobilizes the capacities of local initiatives. It removes responsibility, since Paris will always manage. So why make the difficult decisions? Why take responsibility for things, since Paris always takes charge? This verticality removes local responsibility. Except that as a result, we do not have the tools to respond to the distress and exasperation of citizens. I am asked to resolve issues of climate, mobility, housing with a toothpick and tweezers. It does not work! This Republic is dying of its centralism, as shown by this clear halt given by our fellow citizens. And we will have to reinvent something else. And France needs cooperation and horizontality. And that is of course all the elected representatives of the Republic, but also civil society, associations, business leaders. It is all these committed men and women who make France.
The Breton “Christian Democrat” tradition had long been seen as a form of bulwark against the rise of the extreme right. What happened to cause such a shift?
First of all, there is individualism, which undermines our cohesion and our desire to live together. One of the battles that I lead, with others, is to fight against this “blanket-sofa-Netflix” combo. Which makes you feel good, in your cocoon, but which is not enough to fulfill yourself. We must continue to want others, by strengthening our associations, the dialogue in the neighborhoods or in the towns. We must find ways to engage people, not only in their jobs, but also in their social and civic life. It is a real battle which, in Brittany, is still present. A little damaged, certainly, but all is not lost. We continue to have a singularity in this aspect.
The second point lies in my eyes in the seven years that we have just spent. Of this central force, which implements this centralism, and which denies the nuances. In Brittany, for a long time, we had an opposition between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats. Two forms of moderation, which have furiously anchored convictions, utopias.
“I will never put a sign of equivalence between La France insoumise and the National Rally.”
We had always managed to manage our alternations, which are healthy in the Republic. However, the President of the Republic has designed a form of central force that absorbs everything, like a black hole. But if we put all the reasonable, all the competent, all the experts together, what is left? The extremes. This is what we see today: a dislocated right, a damaged left. And there remain radical forces that express themselves powerfully, even in our Brittany.
You had chosen to leave the PS in 2022 after the Nupes agreement, due to the presence of La France Insoumise. This time, you have chosen to join the dynamic of the New Popular Front. Why this change of position?
I had indeed made the choice to leave the PS after the Nupes. My political line is not to seek to take power by brutalizing the country or cultivating chaos. I think that we need serenity, calm, including in our utopias, because citizens want to be reassured. But I will never put a sign of equivalence between La France insoumise and the National Rally. I make the difference between LFI activists, sympathizers and voters who believe in its values while being Republicans, and a few personalities who use whiffs of hatred, brutalization, tensions in society and who have expressions and attitudes that place them outside the republican field, on worrying anti-Semitic lines. And on the other side, the RN, which structurally, in its DNA, is the party of racism and anti-Semitism. They are the ones who intend to sort our fellow citizens between the “pure” French, the French who have dual nationality…
But in the face of the decision of the President of the Republic to dissolve, it was necessary to oppose another hope, another desire, another solution to the RN. This is where the necessary dynamic of the alliance of the left was implemented. And of course I had to be there, while recalling my red lines. Because the emergency today is that the National Rally does not obtain an absolute majority in the Assembly.
Across France, there has been a wave of withdrawals in order to counter the election of RN deputies. Brittany is no exception. Do you think that this “republican barrier” will hold in your region?
I devote all of my time to preventing the arrival of a National Rally MP in Brittany. I put all my energy into it, calling on all the political forces of the Republican spectrum in Brittany, in particular so that withdrawals take place everywhere. I am speaking to elected officials from the right and the left. But also to elected officials from La France Insoumise who, for many of them here, are entirely responsible. To elected environmentalists who, in my chamber, sometimes find that I am not committed enough. I am talking to all these men and women because there is danger, and because Brittany can show the way forward for the country.
I do not allow myself to despair. I am an elected official of the Republic who works on enthusiasm. Enthusiasm can be communicated, it can be renewed, and it produces effects for our fellow citizens. Even those who are worried and in difficulty, and there are many of them. If we show them that we have ambition, and that we work seriously, then we will be able to take everyone along. This will be our challenge tomorrow for the country. We cannot wait for the providential man or woman. There will be no superhero who will arrive and solve all the problems. We will need ambition and a collective project. Our state of mind as Bretons is tenacity, courage and respect for the rules. This is the basis for the reconquest of our collective ambition in this country. And we will succeed, I am certain.
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