For the second time running, the far-right National Rally came out top in European elections in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe. As France heads back to the polls to elect its parliament, analysts say voters in the Caribbean island are looking to punish the ruling parties for failing to address their concerns about the cost of living, lack of basic services and immigration.
In Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe's economic hub, taxi driver Frédéric says his taps only work one day out of two.
"In some towns the water is cut off for three, four days or a whole week at a time," he tells RFI.
Recurrent drought, combined with chronic neglect of the region's infrastructure, have left the archipelago subject to shortages, high prices and contamination so serious that UN experts say they threaten residents' human right to safe water.
"In mainland France, one day without water is a problem and in three days it's fixed. Not here," says Frédéric.
While the central government has promised investment to overhaul Guadeloupe's water network, authorities estimate that between 60 and 70 percent of the population is still living with regular cuts.
Frédéric takes it as symptomatic of a lack of interest from the parliament in Paris. "None of the politicians really take their job seriously," he complains. "I'd even go so far to say they've quit.
"In fact, the real question should be: does Guadeloupe really count?"
Voter abstention
Such disillusionment has translated into one of the highest abstention rates in France.
Voter turnout in Guadeloupe, already historically lower than on the mainland, was between 25 and 30 percent in the last parliamentary elections of 2022 and 2017.
For EU elections, it was even lower: just over 14 percent in 2019 and 13 percent in this year's vote at the beginning of June.
But those who do cast their ballot are increasingly seeking alternatives to the people in power.
The far-right National Rally (RN) won 30 percent of Guadeloupean votes in the latest European elections, compared to around 31 percent nationwide. They're the second EU polls in a row when the party has finished top on the islands, but this year's score is even bigger – some 7 percent higher than in 2019.
Meanwhile in the last presidential election in 2022, Guadeloupe picked RN candidate Marine Le Pen over incumbent Emmanuel Macron by roughly 70 percent to 30 percent in the second-round run-off.
It was a reversal of fortunes for Macron. Five years earlier, back when he was a first-time candidate, those percentages were more or less the other way round.
Courted by far right
Now in his second term, Macron is too distant and technocratic to appeal to voters in overseas France, according to Pierre-Yves Chicot, a lawyer and public law professor in Pointe-à-Pitre.
He's one of several presidents who "have no respect for these territories that feel themselves to be fully French", Chicot argues.
"So when voters hear [politicians talk about the overseas departments], even if it's just political messaging – which may be the case with the National Rally – they feel like they're being taken into account in some way, at least in the discourse."
Both Le Pen and her successor as head of the RN, Jordan Bardella, made campaign stops in Guadeloupe for the presidential and European elections respectively. Visiting in December 2023, Bardella declared the department "a land of opportunity for the ideas we represent".
A movement long associated with racism may not seem like a natural choice for a part of France where the population is predominantly Afro-Caribbean. But the RN – formerly the National Front – has appealed to islanders' concerns over immigration, sovereignty, crime and rural development.
Guadeloupe-born Rody Tolassy, who stood for the party in the 2024 European elections, has accused Macron's government of failing to provide resources to intercept migrant boats arriving illegally from other parts of the Caribbean, or to crack down on drug trades and violent crime.
He has also called for investment to modernise Guadeloupe's agricultural sector in line with mainland France.
Successfully elected as one of the RN's 30 MEPs, Tolassy told overseas France broadcaster Outre-mer La Première: "Guadeloupeans have chosen patriotism."
Protest vote?
It's not clear whether the islands' voters will make the same choice in upcoming elections for the French parliament. They have elected exclusively left-wing or centrist MPs in the past three legislative polls.
Madame Cécile, a shopkeeper in Pointe-à-Pitre who said she'd traditionally leaned to the left, told RFI she was open to a far-right government.
"It's because they don't listen to us. You get to the end of the month and you've got nothing. And then everything goes to hell."
For now, though, she's pinning her hopes on the New Popular Front, the broad coalition of the left formed to oppose the far right in these elections.
Whether they go left or right, voters in Guadeloupe are set to punish Macron's ruling alliance, analyst Chicot says.
"It's symptomatic of a certain anger, but perhaps also a realisation of the power they hold – of 'dégagisme', the desire to clean house," he says.
"People are going to renounce their convictions in the hope that those to whom they were loyal before pay attention."
RFI's Valentin Hugues reported a version of this story in French from Pointe-à-Pitre.
