Several recently elected far-right mayors have taken down European Union flags from the facades of their town halls, in a move the French government denounced as “populism”.
Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, eurosceptic National Rally (RN) party is on the rise and hopes to win the country’s top job in next year’s presidential election.
During this month’s polls to elect mayors, the far-right party notched wins in small and mid-sized towns, even though it failed to take any major urban centres.
Far-right mayors in several towns wasted no time in taking down the EU flags.
“Out with the European flags at the town hall! Make way for the French flags,” Christophe Barthes, the mayor of the southern town of Carcassonne, said on X on Sunday.
He posted footage showing him personally taking down the European flag and leaving only the French tricolour and the regional flag of Occitania.
Bryan Masson, the new mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer, a seaside resort near the southern city of Nice, and Anthony Garenaux-Glinkowski, the far-right mayor of the northern town of Harnes, followed suit.
Garenaux-Glinkowski also took down the Ukrainian flag that French city halls have been flying in a gesture of solidarity after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
France’s Europe minister Benjamin Haddad denounced the move as “populism.”
“Will they also refuse the European funds received by our farmers, our businesses for re-industrialisation, and our regions? Will they hand back their European Parliament allowances?” Haddad said in a statement to AFP.
“This is populism that shows the RN hasn’t changed,” he added.
No law requires the European symbol to be displayed on town hall facades, except on May 9, Europe Day.
RN officials have justified the removal of the EU flag.
In 2022, French authorities took down a temporary installation of the EU flag from the Arc de Triomphe monument in Paris, after right-wing opponents of President Emmanuel Macron accused him of “erasing” French identity.
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