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A French mayor who faced a barrage of racist insults that are being investigated by police has called for France to urgently tackle race hatred and stem the rise of far-right ideas ahead of next year’s presidential election.
“It has become a lot easier for racist views to be expressed … and unfortunately racist comments are becoming trivialised,” said Bally Bagayoko, 52, in his office at Saint-Denis town hall outside Paris, where he was recently elected mayor for the radical left.
Thousands are expected to attend an anti-racism rally in support of Bagayoko on Saturday, after the prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said abuse of him amounted to the “normalisation of racism and evil” in France.
After Bagayoko’s strong first-round election win last month, he was discussed with references to apes and tribal chiefs by guests on a debate show on CNews – the TV station owned by the Catholic conservative industrialist Vincent Bolloré, which last year was the most-watched news channel in France.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said an investigation was under way into the comments on TV as well as a separate police inquiry into online hate against Bagayoko. Anti-racism groups have filed complaints to the broadcast regulator. CNews has denied racism.
At Saint-Denis town hall, switchboard staff have also received racist phonecalls since Bagayoko’s election, while a file of racist letters posted to the town hall was being compiled to be handed to police, including a letter also sent to several Black elected officials across France saying they had escaped from a zoo.
Bagayoko said Saturday’s demonstration was aimed at bringing together all citizens against racism and those who opposed the rise of the far right in France: “Those who think the time is come to stand up together to propose an alternative. It’s not just about deploring what happened, it’s about engaging in action to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Bagayoko has received messages of support from local rabbis and other religious leaders and said that Saturday’s demonstration was against racism, antisemitism and any form of discrimination and hatred in France.
With Emmanuel Macron’s two terms in office ending in 2027, there is uncertainty about who will lead France. The far-right, anti-immigration the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella is polling high ahead of next spring’s presidential election.
Bagayoko, a senior manager in the Paris region transport company, RATP, was elected with a large majority for Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left party, La France Insoumise (LFI), with the support of communists, who have had a presence in Saint-Denis for decades. He had previously served as a local councillor for 19 years, as well as coaching basketball. He is now the head of the LFI’s biggest town, with a population of 150,000.
Saint-Denis is a diverse, deindustrialised town that nudges up against the north of Paris and hosted a significant part of the Paris 2024 Olympics. It sits at the heart of Seine-Saint-Denis, a département outside Paris that remains one of the poorest in France, with a young, multi-ethnic population that suffers from discrimination and higher than average unemployment.
Bagayoko was born in France to Malian parents and grew up on housing estate in Saint-Denis. He said that as the first mayor from a local French family with a history of immigration from Africa, he had broken a “glass ceiling” in town politics.
This, he felt, had immediately sparked a backlash on TV and social media, where he said racist stereotypes were thrown at him, including that “drug dealers” voted for him. He was also misquoted when he referenced a poem about Saint-Denis, where French kings are buried in the cathedral, calling the town the city of kings. It was wrongly reported on social media that he instead said “city of Blacks”. He said the insults levelled at him were dangerous racist tropes.
Bagayoko said successive governments during Macron’s presidency had failed to address the economic inequality that was driving divisions and racism and had allowed the far right to gain support. “The far right – and racist ideology – lodges itself where there are austerity politics,” he said. “From the moment you have policy that divides the population, it allows the far right to bed in and accentuate those divisions by placing blame on others.”
Bagayoko said the low-income towns outside Paris were still cut off and deprived of state investment. “We’re so close [to Paris] but at the same time, there’s a kind of segregation.” He said inequality and unemployment stemmed from a lack of investment in education, as well as housing, which he wanted to address.
Saint-Denis, which saw new developments during the Olympics, has been at the heart of a row over gentrification and higher-priced housing, while many low-income families struggle.
Bagayoko said: “I’m not one of those people who say the middle classes – which I belong to myself – don’t have the right to move to Saint-Denis. Of course, they’re welcome. But there must be balance.”
He is also considering progressively limiting the use of certain weapons among municipal police.
Bagayoko said the French motto of liberty, equality, fraternity was “a precious ideal that must be preserved” because some areas of France did not fully experience it.
He said he would continue to speak out against racism because he was fortunate to have a platform. “But how many people in France are victims of racist insults and are unfortunately kept silent? Far too many.”
