“On 17 June 2012, in the second round of the legislative elections, the Front National obtained 72.03 per cent of the votes at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. The scale of that score surprised me in this quiet Camargue town of fewer than three thousand inhabitants, known for its tourist beaches and its gypsy pilgrimage.”

The capital of the Camargue is both a popular seaside resort and a place of pilgrimage where gypsies from all over the world gather every year on 24 and 25 May; for decades the festival, with its dance, music and religiosity, has been shown as a unique spectacle. How can a town famous for welcoming them, a town without apparent social problems, without suburbs or difficult neighbourhoods, vote in that proportion for such a party? It is on that question that he went there, and discovered a white and closed place: everything clean, regulated, organised, stuck in the depths of the Camargue in a torpor disturbed in high season by tourists alone.