Mwalk day, and more people line up to buy lottery tickets at the Café du Center than freshly pulled carrots and spinach at the farm stall. “Here, people pay attention to their budget,” explains a fresh produce seller: “They prefer to shop at the discounter.” This northern red-brick town of around 3,000 inhabitants once prospered thanks to a large jute weaving and textile factory, opened in 1857. Today, Flixecourt has a poverty rate of 19%, or nearly five points above the national average. Tight pockets and disillusionment drive voters to extremes. Recently, on the eve of the June 9 elections to the European Parliament, the only two candidates whose posters were visible in the city were Jordan Bardella and Marion Maréchal, rivals of the nationalist far-right.
If France constitutes a test case for whether Europe’s political center can resist the forces of nationalism and populism, Flixecourt captures the dynamics shaping this choice. For more than half a century, voters have entrusted their town hall to the Communist Party. Flixecourt is today under tension, but not deserted. Traffic on its main street snarls after two hours bakeries and a Turkish kebab. Sheer curtains hang prettily from the windows of its rows of small terraced houses. The town has an indoor synthetic ice rink, charging €2 ($2.17) per session, and recently held a gathering of stick-twirling majorettes. A huge, modern logistics warehouse located off the highway, just outside of town, has jobs to fill. “Unemployment is less of a problem than before,” says Patrick Gaillard, the city’s communist mayor. “Those who really want a job can find one.”
