How Europe’s Florida learned to stop worrying and start loving Le Pen

POLITICO’s reporters are speaking to voters to find out what will convince them to head to the ballot box (or not) in the European election in June.

FRENCH RIVIERA — On the famed Croisette promenade in Cannes, retired French boomers have temporarily reclaimed the stretch of shore that is taken over by celebrities and tourists during the summer months. Here, Europe is something nearly no one wants to talk about.

“It’s simple: I only care about women, fishing and les boules,” said one elderly man, referring to pétanque (a game similar to bocce ball), as he watched the sunset with two ladies and their little dogs, who were all wearing fancier clothes than POLITICO’s reporter — dogs included. 

While he was not even aware of the upcoming European election — in which nearly 450 million voters across 27 countries are eligible to cast ballots — the elderly Frenchman, who asked not to be identified, said if he were going to vote, he would back the far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen.

This sprawling southeast corner of France, the Côte d’Azur or French Riviera has for decades been a stronghold of the political right, thanks in part to an aging demographic and built on nationalist ideology stemming from the 1960s return of French settlers from Algeria.

Home to some 1 million people, who mostly work in public administration or the tourism industry, the region has in recent years become even more receptive to right-wing ideas, with representatives of the far right having success in local elections.

The French Riviera could be proof that the “normalization” of right-wing ideology is becoming more accepted and mainstream, said author Charles Sapin, who has written a book on nationalists’ rise across the Continent. 

Le Pen has spent the past several years seeking to expand her hardcore base by winning over more middle-class and bourgeois voters. That, she hopes, will be the last piece of the puzzle that gets her into power.

‘We don’t talk about politics with our friends’

As he was walking his dog after his day at work at a swanky hotel in Cannes, Éric Labeaune, a 50-something man with a shiny puffer jacket, said many of his friends had shifted their outlook and become openly racist. Some of them say they won’t go on holiday in countries like Morocco or Tunisia because there are “too many Arabs.” 

“We don’t talk about politics with our friends now, otherwise we get angry,” said his wife Yasmina Labaune, who works in the same hotel.

The Labaunes were reluctant to talk about their own political beliefs but Éric did say that Jordan Bardella — Le Pen’s 28-year-old protégé and head of the National Rally list for the EU election — often said things on TV that “everybody agreed on.”

As he made that statement on the Croisette, where tourists pose next to luxury cars parked in front of Louis Vuitton and other high-end shops, Éric Labeaune raised his eyebrows in a knowing look, as if it is universally understood that what Bardella is saying are simply facts about France’s decline.

Further down the Croisette, an old chess player with a French flag pin on his jacket did not want to give his name but was more than happy to speak for 15 minutes about vaccines, Joe Biden, and journalists who are not ready to hear the truth or do their job properly. He said that even Le Pen was too centrist for him — he much preferred her former ally and “true patriot” Florian Philippot, who launched an anti-EU movement called The Patriots after ditching the National Rally.

“I’m just too emotional to talk about politics,” said an old lady from Mandelieu-la-Napoule, just along the coast from Cannes. Wearing Gucci loafers and thick sunglasses, she smiled politely as she declined to comment further. Other older people POLITICO tried to talk to refused to speak about the European election either because they did not care about it or feared they could be scammed out of their savings if they spoke to a journalist. 

Le Pen is no longer frightening

As in many other parts of Europe, support for the far right is growing across France, due to the usual mix of disillusionment with national leaders, the rising cost of living, and identity fears. 

“All around Europe, similar dynamics have already helped nationalist leaders take over power, especially now that they have softened their tone on issues that frightened those economically liberal voters who didn’t like anti-Europe stances,” Sapin, the writer, said.

And while French President Emmanuel Macron defeated Le Pen in 2022, she won more than 40 percent of the vote, signaling a deeply divided country.

“The [National Rally] no longer frightens voters here because it has become more respectable at local level, in the national assembly and, above all, Macron is very strongly rejected,” said the conservative mayor of Antibes Jean Leonetti, who moved to this tourist town popular with billionaires decades ago to work as a cardiologist.

In this privileged area, where local mayors like Leonetti have been fined for refusing to create social housing, a growing sense of insecurity is taking over the local population, according to Thierry Cornec, a far-right activist who ran against Leonetti in the Antibes mayoral election.

“France is facing a number of serious threats like migration, insecurity, loss of values, and an identity crisis at the individual and national level,” Cornec said from inside his pharmacy in the seaside town of Juan-les-Pins, adding that he felt it was his duty to “fight back again a prevailing psychosis” that was taking over people.

If the people here are indeed changing, then so is the landscape: the coastal promenades of Nice and Cannes are home to anti-terror installations that are a constant reminder of what happened there.

In the past decade alone, the south of France has seen a cargo truck rammed into heaving crowds on the Nice promenade, and stabbings in a church. The fear of more terror attacks is real for many in this area.

There’s also anti-immigrant sentiment (and the two fears are conflated for many), which has revived fears in the region that the relaxed seafront lifestyle could be threatened by more than mere tax hikes.

Even Ukrainian refugees are not always welcome. 

Some families have moved here with large SUVs, which are the subject of suspicious comments from local residents.

“Macron is talking about sending troops to Ukraine and they’re here with their big cars,” said one restaurant owner from Antibes, who asked POLITICO not to identify him or his establishment, fearing backlash in response to his anti-immigrant sentiments.  

On the other hand, the owner conceded, one group that is always welcome is wealthy tourists. 

“Whether they are Russians, Arabs, Africans, ordinary tourists or dictators, a client is a client,” the restaurant owner said. Asked about who he would vote for in June, the owner responded with a single name: Marine Le Pen.