TESTIMONIALS. “Here, the RN has replaced the left”: in Sochaux, when the distress of workers benefits the far right

Published on 06/15/2024 at 7:05 a.m. Written by Antoine Comte

During the 2024 European elections, 54% of French workers turned to the National Rally according to an IPSOS poll. The factories now seem to have been won over by the far right, which is riding on the social and economic misery of workers. Example in Sochaux (Doubs), with workers at the Stellantis factory, the historic cradle of Peugeot where the RN scores have only increased since 2002.

In Sochaux, city of Peugeot, the RN lists (formerly FN) have come first in most elections since 2002. In the last European elections, the National Rally and Reconquest, added together, thus won almost 50% of the votes. How could Sochaux, symbol of the working left, a mecca of trade unionism, a bastion historically dominated by the Communist Party and then the Socialist Party, fall to the other side of the political spectrum? To try to understand, the best thing is to go there.

It’s 11:30 a.m. this Wednesday, June 12. Here we are in the Sochalian city, in the middle of avenue du Général-Leclerc. At its first end, the artery leads to the Peugeot museum. On the other side, the Peugeot factory, and its almost 6,000 employees. More than the population of the city (around 3,700 inhabitants). And far from the 17,000 workers present in 2002. “And even now, we no longer see the Peugeots.” A confession signed Mustapha. For 17 years, the septuagenarian has been the manager of the “Chez Mouss” brewery. We entered there in the hope of finding Peugeot employees. Without success.

We only have retirees or the unemployed. Before, the avenue had quite a few working-class cafes and restaurants. They close one after the other.

Mustapha,

manager of the brewery at Mouss

Mustapha, too, feels threatened. “Last year, we paid an electricity bill around 400-600 euros. Today, it’s 2,200,” he regrets. “With gas also going to increase, we are thinking of stopping. It is no longer tenable.” Mustapha, 74, blames his difficulties “on politicians of all sides. They make promises that they never keep.” When we try to discuss the elections with him, he cuts it short. “I haven’t voted since 2007. Before, I believed in it, I voted on the left. But they all disappointed me. I don’t think any of them are going to change things.” A silence. “Even if, it’s true, here, many vote for Le Pen,” he finally said.

This statement is impossible to verify with the brewery’s rare customers. The majority explains that they no longer vote. We therefore decide to follow avenue Leclerc, direction the Stellantis factory, ex Peugeot. On the few meters traveled to the employee parking lot, the majority of stores are closed. Iron curtains, sadly demolished. It is around 12:30 p.m. when we arrive there. After passing the hundreds of parked cars, we reach the gate marking the entrance to the factory, waiting for the blue coats.

The Avenue Général Leclerc entrance to the Peugeot Stellantis site in Sochaux. • © JEAN-BAPTISTE BORNIER / MAXPPP

This is a first. Jess*, 55, started at 5am. She is now hastening her steps to return home. Our question is simple. “Who did you vote for in the European elections”? The answer is direct. “National gathering”. “I love my country, and I feel like everything is getting worse and worse,” she says.

I’ve been here for over 30 years. My salary is stagnating, my purchasing power is declining. At the factory, the work becomes almost unbearable, we are always asked for more. I don’t want to die at work.

I ss,

worker at the Stellantis factory in Sochaux

So, after having “seen governments of the right and the left who did nothing”, the fifty-year-old now wants to “change things”. And will vote for RN again, for the legislative elections. And why not the left? “They showed, after 1981 and 2012, that they were no longer capable of protecting us.” We find this opinion in the mouths of almost the majority of PSA workers. It is now 12:40 p.m. The gate keeps turning. The afternoon shift meets the morning shift.

The gates marking the entrance to the factory. • © DR

For Yves* too, the work is finished. “I voted RN, yes. It’s a protest vote” he explains. “Here, there is not much left, we have the impression of not being listened to. They are the ones best placed to oppose Macron.” However, Yves, 47 years old and 24 years of seniority, has long voted on the left. “But nothing happened. I didn’t like Le Pen, compared to what his family represented. But Bardella, I like the guy.”

I’m not racist, I don’t vote EN for fear of the big replacement or my job being stolen. But I’m afraid I won’t have anything to eat in a few years.

Yves,

worker at Peugeot Stellantis, in Sochaux

“We don’t feel listened to, not respected, by the rest of the political class” adds Nathalie, 53 years old and 20 years behind her, an RN voter for several years. “Our considerations are not the same, especially with the left which, at the moment, talks more about ecology or Palestine than purchasing power. We work, but we have nothing.” “We have tried everything , nothing has changed,” adds Florian, 31, who has been working as a temporary worker at the factory for a year and a half. “We have infernal speeds, a pittance of pay… We need an electric shock.”

Nadia* hears this speech more and more at the factory. She arrives at work with her colleague Ahmed*. “There’s almost nothing left of the far right,” she says. However, she voted for La France Insoumise for Europeans, “those who think most about workers” she assures. “They can really change our daily lives.”

Ahmed adds, “on the left, they are those who can defend us.” However, he does not hold a grudge against his many colleagues, RN voters. “We are all disappointed, we have the impression of being abandoned. So there is anger. And many no longer believe in politics. They therefore vote for the National Rally which, with its communication, passes itself off as an anti-system party, whereas it is the opposite.

Illustrative image. • © LIONEL VADAM / MAXPPP

In front of the gates, two gray heads stand like a crane. In their hands, a small basket, draped in red. “Donate to the collection, support the Lutte Ouvrière magazine” shouts Gigi*, 63 years old and 38 years at Peugeot. He experienced left-wing unions, strikes and the Lutte Ouvrière vote. Now retired, he has seen things change, little by little. “Here, the RN replaced the left, little by little. The union traditions disappeared with the departure of the elders. At the factory, it became more individualistic.”

People are desperate. There was the retirement law under Macron. Hollande created the labor law and the El-Khomri law. We were all disappointed. So the RN arrives, and lies to people, plays on anger. And we’re going to get fooled again by politicians. And dangerous this time.

Gigi

retired from the Stellantis Peugeot factory in Sochaux

“The RN has succeeded in its strategy: dividing the working class” says Franck, 62, friend of Gigi. He is starting his 28th year at the factory. “Now we are shooting at the poorest people. We think that the cause of precariousness is the foreigner who steals jobs. The RN has managed to make us forget that the real enemies are the bosses. Bardella will not repeal retirement at 64, his party did not vote for the increase in wages… In any case, workers will not get justice through politicians.”

1 p.m., movements at the turnstiles slow down. The bearing has passed. The veterans, members of Lutte Ouvrière, return home with a meager nest egg. When we do the math, out of the thirty workers questioned, three-quarters voted RN for the Europeans. And will vote RN in the legislative elections. A far-right vote now uninhibited, which the unions note bitterly.

It’s heartbreaking. Colleagues make this choice without realizing what it entails. It is a form of despair, fueled by the disdain displayed by the political class towards the working class for several years.

Benoît Vernier,

CFDT manager at Stellantis

Faced with this situation, Benoît Vernier can only note “the helplessness of his union”. “Since the El Khomri law, passed by a left-wing government, we have fewer authorities, fewer commissions, fewer resources,” he states. “So, we are less on the ground. It’s a vicious circle. People see us less, and therefore no longer join. Which weakens us even more.”

The observation, according to Jérôme Boussard, CGT delegate from the Sochaux site, “is catastrophic”. “As unions, we feel guilty because we say to ourselves that we have not listened to them enough” he assures. “But we will continue to fight. What we must not do is despise the working class even more. We must continue to discuss with them the dangers of the National Rally, try to understand the life paths behind these votes to propose a real policy in favor of workers”.

Jérôme Boussard is convinced, “things can change”. “We must put forward a program with measures on purchasing power, on retirement, on protectionism” he adds “And there, the RN voices will move, because most of my colleagues are not racist and do not are not attached to the discriminatory proposals of the extreme right.

An admissible argument? “No doubt” analysis Vincent Lebrou, lecturer in political science at the University of Franche-Comté. “Certain worker votes in favor of the RN are not fixed. Many workers vote by capillarity, that is to say by imitating their colleagues, who are no longer hiding because the extreme right has now become legitimate” .

For the political scientist, the RN also rides on an “anti-system” image created thanks to “the fragmentation of the political landscape”. “We had the shattering of the left-right divide by Macron in 2017. Then the creation and end of the Nupes on the left and recently, the implosion of the right. The RN, in all of this, stayed the course with his ideas and is for some workers a point of reference in a political landscape difficult to follow.

The RN filled the political vacuum created by the decline of left-wing parties and unions. They were able to surf on the social and economic misery of a working class abandoned by public policies to progress.

Vincent Lebrou,

political scientist

With a well-established technique according to Vincent Lebrou: the reinvention of class voting. “It is no longer the dominants against the dominated. But the dominated against other precarious foreigners presented as thieves of money and jobs. Which is a fantasy” he analyzes. “And the left was not able to respond to these speeches, with concerns too far removed from the daily lives of workers. But paradoxically the National Rally is also a party which, through its votes in Parliament, does not care about the fate of the working class. It’s a political hoax.”

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How to reverse the trend? To this question, Vincent Lebrou does not want to come forward. “The far right will eventually come to power,” he concludes. “It has gotten too far ahead. The left must recreate a network, a strong presence on the ground. And above all, stop class contempt, stop hitting the poor, at the risk of creating even more resentment” .

In this, the creation of the New Popular Front seems like good news. Will it be enough for factories, including the historic Peugeot site in Sochaux, to turn red again? First element of answers Sunday June 30, around 8 p.m., with the results of the 1st round of the legislative elections. The voices of workers will be decisive.

*first names have been changed to maintain the anonymity of the witnesses

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