Whenever a new visitor arrives in Hayange, a northern town in France, the eye is drawn to a stark industrial complex. Black and white pipes, rusted warehouses, and a railway line frame the horizon, and the ArcelorMittal furnaces stand as a symbol of a city with about 16,000 residents, located roughly 40 kilometers from the Luxembourg border. The steelworks, closed since 2013, serves as a tangible reminder of northern France’s deindustrialization and helps explain the strong support for far-right movements in the area. Marine Le Pen has been a prominent figure associated with this sentiment.
Residents in Hayange often describe a sense of betrayal by political leadership from both the left and the right. Industrial furnaces were shuttered despite promises by presidents like François Hollande to reverse the trend, a point underscored by interviews with local figures and coverage in regional media. Fabien Engelmann, the town’s mayor, leads a coalition of near twenty municipalities in the National Regrouping, a party on the far-right spectrum. Since his 2014 election and a subsequent landslide in the March 2020 municipal elections—held in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic—Hayange has watched the ArcelorMittal plant, once the country’s leading steel producer, curtail production and ultimately cease operations in Luxembourg’s corporate orbit.
The decline of Turkey’s steel industry and similar losses in towns like Hayange and Florange have been cited as episodes that questioned Hollande’s leadership during the 2012 campaign. The then-president’s visits to striking workers highlighted concerns about job security and industrial policy, and the deals he later signed with multinational steel interests did not shield workers from layoffs. According to CGT, around 1,000 jobs disappeared in Lorraine’s historic steel belt, which fed broader discontent across the region.
Deindustrialization and the political landscape
Pascal Raggi, a historian at the University of Lorraine, notes that the closure of ArcelorMittal’s operations in 2012 represented the final act in a long-running deindustrialization process that began during the oil crisis of the mid-1970s. He adds that political shifts followed, with the decline of traditional parties affecting both left-leaning and social-democratic bases and reshaping voter loyalties in industrial belts. The crisis produced lasting social strain, with Hayange recording a poverty rate around 20 percent and youth unemployment well above average. Such conditions have contributed to electoral openness toward nationalist and anti-establishment messages, as observed by political analyst Etienne Criqui, who specializes in the region’s steel and mining heritage.
In the first round of recent elections, the ultranationalist candidate captured a substantial share of the vote in Hayange, reflecting the broader trend of working-class areas gravitating toward Le Pen’s platform. Across the department, support for far-right candidates has fluctuated but remained highest in most provinces north of France, with Alsace standing out as a historical exception. The northern belt’s experience of deindustrialization is often cited as a parallel to Rust Belt regions elsewhere, where economic anxiety intersects with national identity politics.
Voices on the street
In Hayange, ordinary residents express mixed and strongly personal views about immigration and social support. A 63-year-old plumber spoke frankly about his frustrations, saying he dislikes what he perceives as foreigners and urban crime. A 62-year-old retiree and former florist described a sense of fatigue with political promises and questioned the adequacy of pensions after decades of work. Public life in Hayange on certain days feels subdued—Good Friday, a public holiday in this region, often leaves the streets quiet. The town, once famed for vigorous industrial activity, now presents itself as a quiet residential area with a neo-Renaissance church and the Town Hall standing near a clock-tower that blends into the local industrial aesthetic.
Local governance under the ultranationalist mayor is framed by a push for order and efficiency on the streets, though critics argue that social programs and public services have suffered. Proposals that reduced municipal staffing and altered the management of services drew contested opinions from opposition voices. A volunteer caretaker of social services observed that some humanitarian efforts prefer to avoid political entanglements, illustrating a nuanced stance toward charitable work and governance in a time of fiscal constraint.
Political loyalties and shifting allegiances
Some residents who previously backed figures across the political spectrum report a tentative openness to new leadership while stopping short of full endorsement. One longtime resident recalled taking a break from local politics after the 2014 election, only to return with a new perspective during subsequent elections. The local political scene remains dynamic, with former supporters of leftist and progressive figures weighing the potential impact of different leaders on the town’s economic and social fabric. This ongoing debate reflects a broader national conversation about how regions shaped by industrial decline might reconcile economic needs with social and cultural concerns.