in Lens, a metropolis on the left for a century, the RN vote is not an “anomaly” | EUROtoday

A high quality rain sprinkles town, evening falls and the weekend approaches. Three good causes to remain heat and provides your self a bit of relaxation. And but, a small crowd crowds in entrance of an affiliation premises on Place Saint-Léonard, in Lens (Pas-de-Calais), Friday February 20. Some 200 individuals sat right down to take heed to the mayor of the city, Sylvain Robert (Socialist Party, PS), who got here to current his program and his working mates in view of the municipal elections of March 15 and 22.

In entrance of the viewers, the candidates rise up, state their background, surname, first title, occupation or associative exercise, presumably a political affiliation – half of them have none. A station supervisor talks about her attachment to this city of practically 33,000 inhabitants, a former footballer from the Racing Club de Lens rents a “builder mayor”a retiree describes a neighborhood “who is reborn from his ashes”… The displays are transient, the room responds warmly and much more so when this or that working mate invokes a specific lineage: daughter or son, granddaughter or grandson of a miner.

Even right this moment, working-class ancestry is equal to neighborhoods of the Aristocracy on this former coal basin of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, which was not but referred to as Hauts-de-France. Only 4 individuals out of forty spoke of this heritage that night, however listening to Sylvain Robert, there could be many extra of them on his record. He himself, the kid of the nation, is “miner’s grandson”. “Proud of yesterday, committed to tomorrow!” »proclaims his marketing campaign slogan. It seems on the paperwork he distributes the subsequent day, throughout a door-to-door session within the outdated metropolis 8 – the districts of Lens nonetheless bear the nicely quantity from the time when the coal mines crisscrossed town.

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