For two years, Vincent Jarousseau and historian Valérie Igounet investigated three towns run by the Front National: Hayange, Beaucaire and Hénin-Beaumont.
They set out to meet elected officials and the population, listening to them, hearing them and photographing them. The result is an unpublished report in the form of a photo-novel. Except that nothing is invented. Every word has been recorded and transcribed to the nearest comma. The photos capture daily scenes – exchanges between a mother and her daughter, between a wife and her husband, a mayor and his advisor – and recreate a France that we do not see.
This photographic documentary is a unique testimony. The conclusion is indisputable: the National Front is making progress where the majority parties have abdicated. It fills the void by carrying out a local management which materializes by a little more cleanliness, a few flowers, animations at Christmas, a pig festival, a reinforced municipal police force… and by holding an anxiety-provoking discourse on migrants, Islam, Europe.
The FN sells a dream tinged with nostalgia, a fantasized France, a “it was better before”.
