The Press in France | Emergency in Carhaix

France is voting this Sunday in the second round of tense legislative elections. Our columnist Laura-Julie Perreault has traveled the country in recent days, from the Côte d’Azur to Brittany, to talk to voters and politicians about the rise of the extremes. Today, we visit Carhaix, a small Breton town where the convergence of multiple angers is at the heart of a duel between the left and the far right.

(Carhaix, France) “Karaez Rezistañs”. You don’t need to speak Breton to understand that the poster posted at the entrance to La Cantine des chefs, a café in the small town of Carhaix, is a protest poster about the town’s hospital. There’s a big H in the middle.

The small three-story hospital, which serves rural communities in central Brittany, has been at the heart of a political storm since health authorities decided last year to close its emergency department at night due to a lack of resources and staff.

It takes more than 45 minutes by car, partly on country roads, to reach another hospital, in Brest, Quimper or Pontivy. “It’s serious. There are people dying,” says Erwan Chartier, editor-in-chief of the region’s weekly newspaper, The Pohermet in the offices of his publication a few minutes after he had finished his weekly issue.

With his team, he documents the impact of the lack of health care, the increasing protests demanding the permanent reopening of emergency rooms, and the growing anger among the rural population of this region who feel abandoned by “the central government and the technocracy,” notes the journalist.

New wave from the far right

And this anger has reached the ballot boxes. In this center-left stronghold, where the Socialist Party has long dominated, the National Rally of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella made a historic breakthrough in the European elections of June 9, coming out on top. A phenomenon that could be observed everywhere in Brittany, to everyone’s surprise, but which somewhat subsided during the first round of the legislative elections.

But not in Carhaix. Patrick Le Fur, the candidate of the nationalist party sometimes described as radical right, sometimes as far right, won more than a third of the votes in the constituency, coming in second. This Sunday, the former officer of a special commando of the French Navy will face the outgoing socialist MP, Mélanie Thomin, in the second round. The candidate from Emmanuel Macron’s camp, who came in third, withdrew from the race.

During the election campaign leading up to the vote, Mr. Le Fur notably put forward the issue of hospitals. While his left-wing rival is calling for a thorough reform of public hospitals, he promises to replenish staff by exempting retired health workers from taxes who agree to return to work.

Erwan Chartier is surprised by this sudden interest.

The editor-in-chief is also a historian, specializing in the history of Brittany.

Just read one or two issues of Poher to see that regional debates go far beyond medical care. There is also talk of farmers’ mobilizations, who block roundabouts with their tractors to denounce the drop in their incomes and unfair competition from countries that do not have to comply with the strict rules of the European Union. The National Rally, which wants to limit the power of Brussels, has more and more followers in these circles.

From debate to death threats

The north-western region of France was also at the heart of a huge controversy launched by the far right when the small town of Callac, 20 km from Carhaix, wanted to set up a reception project for refugees in 2022 in the heart of a rather disadvantaged community of 2,200 inhabitants, a project of a foundation called Merci.

The affair quickly degenerated when identity and far-right activists attacked the project. Marion Maréchal, Marine Le Pen’s niece, who left the National Rally in 2022 to join Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête movement – ​​also to the right of the right – made it her spearhead. The project made headlines in French newspapers for over a year before being abandoned. Reconquête declared victory. Marion Maréchal, for her part, has just allied herself with the National Rally for the elections.

This episode left its mark in Central Brittany. And in particular on Erwan Chartier who received death threats from far-right activists.

It started with insults published on websites linked to the far right and the Reconquête movement. “I was called a collaborator because I interviewed the mayor of Callac and the director of the project. And I was sold out to the immigrationists,” says the journalist.

After filing a complaint with the police, he received a first threatening email. The newspaper’s accountant received a call asking what time the editor-in-chief would show up “to put a bullet in his head.”

During a conference he gave on the Callac scandal in February 2023, a former National Front candidate in the region came out giving a Nazi salute. The whole thing was filmed.

The Specter of World War II

Is all that over? Far from it. On the night of June 19-20, a little less than two weeks before the first round of the legislative elections, activists from a small group put stickers on public buildings in Carhaix. They attacked the local press and Erwan Chartier in particular, comparing The Poher old Pravda of the Soviet Union. The Poher denounced the main perpetrator of these misdeeds.

“What happened to me is borderline psychiatric,” says the editor-in-chief, “but these people are fed by xenophobic anti-Islam, anti-vaccination and pro-Putin sites,” he adds, fearing an even greater liberation of this kind of discourse in the event of an electoral victory for the National Rally this Sunday.

“The people of Carhaix tell me they are worried. Especially those who were born during the war,” says Erwan Chartier, referring to the German occupation of Brittany and the collaboration of the Vichy regime.

The leader of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, has been working hard for over a decade to de-demonize her party and make people forget that its ancestor, the National Front, was set up by former Nazi sympathizers, notorious anti-Semites and those nostalgic for French Algeria, but this transfiguration does not convince everyone in Carhaix or elsewhere.

Far from Paris

At the local bar, Le Brizeux, people are still stunned by the results of the last two votes in the small town. “Carhaix is ​​a breeding ground for the left, and seeing such a rise of the far right there is incomprehensible,” says Joël, taking a sip of beer. “It’s mainly a refusal by Emmanuel Macron,” believes Jean. “There are lots of young farmers who are turning to the far right,” adds Stéphane. The three men, like many other people interviewed in Carhaix, refuse to give their last names. “We live in a small community,” notes Jean, to explain his shyness.

And what do the voters who chose the National Rally in the region say about it? We did not meet any in Carhaix, but we spoke to several of them in Lorient, another town in Brittany located on the coast.

“I voted for the National Rally with shame,” says Gilles Daniel, met on a terrace. He believes that President Macron’s camp is disconnected from society and fears a left-wing government, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise movement at its heart. “By voting for the National Rally, it’s a way of saying: ‘Listen to the people! This is urgent!’”

An emergency that goes well beyond a regional hospital, it seems.