Between RN and NFP, this city of Tarn fractured after the legislative elections – L’Express

On the central square of Graulhet, the excitement of the holidays hangs in the air. This year, the municipality of this small town of 13,000 inhabitants, located in the heart of the Tarn, has decided to celebrate July 14 in style. For the occasion, the local band has set up in the center of the square, a stage with DJ and blue lights is already waiting for the future dancers, bartenders and candy sellers are preparing to take orders in their temporary stands. Before the start of the festivities, the municipality organizes a solemn ceremony in the presence of the firefighters, with honors to the flag and a review of the troops. Under the heavy blue-white-red fabric, facing firefighters standing at attention, the mayor (PS) of the town Blaise Aznar attempts a unifying speech. Elected since July 2020, he salutes the commitment of these firefighters who “do not count their hours”, and make it possible to organize such events, “popular and unifying”. Around him, the hundred or so inhabitants applaud softly. While the city is divided, his words were not chosen at random.

During the second round of the legislative elections the previous week, the town was split into two camps: the voters of the National Rally (RN), 52.6% of whom voted for the candidate Julien Bacou, and the voters of the New Popular Front (NFP), 47.4% of whom voted for the outgoing La France Insoumise MP, Karen Erodi. Despite nearly 37% abstention, the RN’s choice in the town was decided by just 275 votes, and illustrates the more than tense duel that took place in this territory of the 2nd constituency of Tarn. Like Graulhet, Julien Bacou came out on top in many working-class towns and small rural villages – but his lead was erased by the scores from the polling stations in Albi, the prefecture, where Karen Erodi was largely acclaimed. The NFP candidate thus managed to keep her seat in the chamber, winning the election in the constituency with 50.7% of the vote, by 1,000 votes. In Graulhet, where the RN jumped 16 points between the 2022 and 2024 legislative elections, this strong opposition between the two camps is palpable. The frustration of some residents, too.

“It had to change”

“What do you want me to tell you? We can’t stand elections anymore. All we hear about it for weeks, we vote, and then we see that it’s no use,” says a spectator, disillusioned. In the lukewarm atmosphere of this July 13, many Graulhétois prefer to listen to the fanfare rather than discuss politics. In this city where people know each other as much as they observe each other, many prefer not to comment on their vote, for fear of losing a customer, frustrating a neighbor, or irritating a colleague. Sophie, for her part, is more talkative: not caring about the looks of her friends, who “do the same as her”, the fifty-year-old admits to “voting for Marine” since 2017. Weary, she mentions her electricity bill which has gone from “120 to 190 euros”, her minimum wage which is not increasing, the shopping “which is no longer the same as before” or the restaurant meals which have long since disappeared. Why, in this case, not have voted for the NFP, whose program proposed in particular an increase in the minimum wage? The civil servant dismisses the idea. “In twenty years, I voted for Chirac, on the left, on the right… But I have the impression that the RN is the only one to listen to the real problems of the French. We can’t get out of it anymore, and it’s the only party we haven’t tried yet,” she argues.

A few meters away, Aurore is holding more or less the same discourse: this childminder, mother and former voter Les Républicains, voted RN for the first time during the legislative elections. “We no longer have any purchasing power, we unplug all the sockets before going to bed for fear of the bill… It was difficult to take the plunge, but it’s my way of warning,” she explains to L’Express. What about the party’s positions on immigration, dual nationality, birthright citizenship or insecurity? “They weren’t necessarily my convictions, but too bad. It had to change,” she evades.

In Graulhet, where the leather tannery closed one after the other in the mid-1980s and where the unemployment rate reached 15.5% in 2021 – 8 points higher than in the rest of France – the RN largely focused its campaign on purchasing power, promising a reduction in VAT and fuel prices. But the party’s economic arguments were not the only ones to have hit home with residents. At the other end of the square, it was rather “national preference” regarding social assistance that convinced Marina and her friends, voters for Jordan Bardella, whose speech is much more clear-cut. “We’re fed up with financing the social assistance of those who do nothing,” says this pastry chef, tired of “getting up at 3:30 every morning when others are quietly taking advantage of the CAF”. Her friend Dylan agrees and goes on without hesitation to talk about “the problem of immigration”. “We have given too much to people who come from outside, to whom we pay millions, billions every year. We must think of the people inside!” he insists, irritated. This argument of “us against them”, half-heartedly distinguishing the French from immigration and “the others”, comes back, like a leitmotif.

Vincent, 21, holding a glass of neon blue granita, thus “totally” assumes his vote for Jordan Bardella, whose videos he assiduously follows on TikTok. “I love his response on the ‘battles‘”, he says, speaking of televised political debates, of which he has only watched a few excerpts cut to the advantage of his favorite candidate on the networks. “He says things: we have to stop social benefits for those who don’t work, stop immigration, stop insecurity”, he recites. Gesturing towards the quiet square in Graulhet, he mentions “garbage cans burned during the France-Morocco match” during the last football World Cup and a city that has “changed”.

Between the thunderous covers of the orchestra and the glasses of beer, other residents cite in no particular order “the rear wheels of a resident of the neighborhoods” during the music festival last year, the Nahel affair, “little Lola in a suitcase”, the incivility of certain young people, “the abaya at school”… “Some of us have already been attacked or whistled at, we don’t dare leave our house anymore”, pleads Stéphanie, seated in front of a drink with her group of friends, who all share her opinion. As the conversation progresses, the tone rises, the declarations become more and more heated. And end with a shrill: “We are not at home anymore!” – and the promise to go and live in Spain. “If I could have voted 10 times, 30 times for Jordan Bardella, I would have done it”, hisses Stéphanie.

“People let loose”

Far from the picture described by some Graulhétois, the July 14 celebrations nevertheless took place peacefully, without fights or clashes. Moving away from the small crowd gathered in front of the orchestra, Nicolas expressed his incomprehension in the face of the rise of the RN in his town and the fear of some of his fellow citizens. He voted for the left and does not share any of these concerns. “Here, it is very calm, there is no more insecurity than elsewhere. The problem is that many are bottle-fed on social networks and certain very biased channels. They end up believing that danger is everywhere. The RN plays a very unhealthy game, which leads people to confuse incivility and insecurity”, he despairs. Between the two rounds, this engineer noted “more than tense” situations in his town: “People let loose. As they left the Carrefour, some shouted: ‘You’ll see on July 7, it’s going to change, you won’t be smart anymore!'”. His friend Laurent, a craftsman from the neighboring town, agrees. “We felt the tension, a certain opposition rising. At the polling station, a friend who was taking an NFP ballot was insulted,” he sighs.

From his office at the town hall, Mayor Blaise Aznar is well aware of the frustrations that are building up among some of his constituents. “We are in a medical desert, there is a lack of public services, a train station. There were the yellow vests, Covid, inflation, and certain programs that lobotomized people’s minds about insecurity… The RN has infiltrated every gap,” he analyzes. While his town has always been divided between the “classic” parties of the right and the left, the man can only note an “increasingly extreme” vote, motivated by “a rejection of the power in place and the collapse of the historic right.” In the first round of the legislative elections, the Ensemble candidate Pierre Verdier only obtained 16.1% of the vote in Graulhet, while the LR candidate Thierno Bah barely gathered 4.2% of the vote. Even though the mayor assures that he is “doing everything” to calm the irritations of his voters, the dialogue between supporters of the RN and the NFP seems to have been broken for a long time.

Sitting on the terrace of a café in the city centre, Nina describes the closed doors and the dialogues of the deaf during her days of leafleting for NFP candidate Karen Erodi, between the two rounds. “Some simply refused to talk to us, they saw the MP on paper and it was total rejection. It’s impossible to talk to each other, and when we do manage to, they only bring up clichés about immigration, without any substantive argument,” she says. Nadia Gil, union representative for the CGT Tarn Ouest, also senses a “more assertive and tense” discourse among some voters. “Everyone sticks to their guns. People still have a minimum of respect for each other, but we feel that we shouldn’t push too hard. The municipal elections will soon be here, and many are wondering what will happen,” she explains.

On the Sunday morning market, where traders from surrounding towns and voters of all political stripes mingle, the tensions of the previous weeks leave a bitter memory. “The NFP and RN activists were each handing out leaflets on their own, but you could feel the pressure building,” says one vendor. “The NFP activists immediately labelled me RN when I refused a leaflet, so I prefer not to talk about politics anymore!” apologizes another. “I’m relieved that the left has passed, but I prefer not to provoke too much political discussion here. I don’t want to see people’s dark side,” says a left-wing voter, before returning to her purchases. A few meters away, on the stone walls of the town, an election poster for Karen Erodi is already crumbling. That of candidate Julien Bacou has been covered with an advertisement for the town’s cultural festival, while the “Vote NFP!” tags will soon be cleaned by the municipality. Until the next elections.