A Small French Town Infused With Us-vs.-Them Politics
By AMANDA TAUBAPRIL 20, 2017
FRÉJUS, France — Fréjus, a small town on the south coast of France, looks so charming
that during my recent visit I half-expected its residents to spontaneously break into the opening number of Disney’s "Beauty and the Beast." Flowers bloomed on windowsills that lined winding cobbled streets, and yachts bobbed in the harbor under golden sunshine.
that The mosque should never have seen the light of day because the building permit should never have been issued,
Fréjus became a symbol of the far-right National Front party’s breakthrough in 2014, when 26-year-old David
Rachline won the mayoral race, part of a wave of National Front victories in local elections across France.
" she said, "or if it’s just pulling the cart." She was particularly concerned about the lack of opportunities for the next generation.
that I think there are many people in France who want to know why they get up in the morning, and if working still has the value they were taught as children,
Just as the Confederate flag has a double meaning — a symbol of racism to many,
but a symbol of a treasured past to others — Algeria stands for French racist oppression, but also a lost society seen as expanding French Republican virtues to the edge of the Sahara.
So whatever you want to say about France’s relationship to its minority populations, Algeria often allows you to make
that argument." The monument in Fréjus in some ways captures the National Front’s political strategy in miniature.
Gilles Longo, Mr. Rachline’s deputy, said the mayor erected the monument to honor the town’s Pieds-Noirs, former French settlers who fled Algeria when it won independence in 1962,
and its Harkis, Algerians who fought alongside the French.