Why France’s Provence and the Riviera are so right-wing

WITH ITSPACARNPACA palm-fringed beaches, ribbon of coastal cities, inland vineyards and year-round sunshine, the south of France feels in some ways like a southern California . The region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur () is home to nearly 200,000 students and a tech hub at Sophia Antipolis, near Nice. Car-dependent, it boasts outside Marseille one of the biggest cases in France of urban commercial sprawl. Cosmetic surgeons are plentiful. Super-yachts fill marinas. The region even indulges Hollywood each year in Cannes. American stars favour multi-million-euro chateaux in the neighbourhood.Politically, however, the south of France could scarcely be more different from liberal California. This is not a destination for young people seeking alternative living or counterculture. With a few exceptions, notably Marseille, almost the entire coastal and inland fringe leans to the right, or hard right. Most small towns and villages, as well as seven of its biggest ten cities, including Nice, Cannes and Aix-en-Provence, are run by centre-right mayors. The tenth-biggest, Fréjus, is held by Marine Le Pen’s hard-right National Rally (the , formerly the National Front). At first-round voting for the presidential election in 2017, was the only region in mainland France that put Emmanuel Macron behind both Ms Le Pen and François Fillon, the centre-right Republican candidate.