Police, poverty and populism: how Perpignan became a

French city’s election of a National Rally mayor has been a study in the party’s attempts to normalise itself in local politics

As Patrice Burel scooped coffee at his roastery in Perpignan, he lamented the steady closure of other shops on this narrow city centre street. “They gradually disappeared like sugar dissolving in a cup of tea,” he said, blaming crime, traffic jams and competition from out-of-town shopping centres. “I long argued for the pedestrianisation of this street.”

Then in 2020 came political change. Perpignan, with a population of 121,000 and close to the Spanish border, became the biggest city to be run by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) in 20 years. The historic city at the foot of the Pyrenees, which for decades has had some of the starkest inequality in France, is now a municipal laboratory for the far right. The new mayor, Louis Aliot, a lawyer who was formerly Le Pen’s romantic partner and is a party vice-president, picked up the pedestrianisation plan for Burel’s street, which began in 2022.