In Perpignan, French far right tests tough-on-crime blueprint

PERPIGNAN, France, March 7 - In the streets of Perpignan, a faded Mediterranean city near France's border with Spain, the incumbent far-right mayor Louis Aliot is pitching a simple message as he asks voters for another term: more police, more cameras and more order. Read more at straitstimes.com.

PERPIGNAN, France, March 7 - In the streets of Perpignan, a faded Mediterranean city near France's border with Spain, the incumbent far-right mayor Louis Aliot is pitching a simple message as he asks voters for another term: more police, more cameras and more order.

The National Rally (RN) mayor has made security the centrepiece of his administration, and his party is holding up this city of 122,000, the biggest it controls, as a blueprint for governance that it hopes to replicate elsewhere ahead of nationwide municipal elections this month.

Aliot, who leads in polls despite an embezzlement conviction that could bar him from office if his appeal fails, said Perpignan has been a laboratory for RN governance since he won city hall in 2020 and a showcase for its national ambitions when the French vote for a new president in 2027.

"When the National Rally is in office, well, we govern, we run cities and we run them well," he said in an interview.

Wins in other cities would give Marine Le Pen's party a springboard going into next year's presidential election. Polls show the RN performing well in Toulon, Nice and Marseille, although a two-round system makes final outcomes hard to forecast.

TOUGH TALK