In the 1930s, when the Etats-Unis neighbourhood of Lyon went up, the early inhabitants were awestruck. True, the beautiful humanist-modernist flats — created by local architect Tony Garnier — didn’t have central heating or showers. But for peasants leaving the poor French countryside, “it was paradise”, recalls Renée Mignon. She and her sister Andrée Joyeux — now in their eighties — were among the first residents, reports The Financial Times.
Joyeux still remembers her parents’ joy at their new home: “To have light, to have toilets . . . ”
Joyeux returned to the neighbourhood after her husband died. When she looks out of the kitchen window now, in her mind’s eye she still sees the shantytown that stood across the road. A single tap served all its inhabitants; the children always had lice. Some of the shanty-dwellers were from Poland or Romania but “they adapted well”, she says. Nowadays the kids of north African and sub-Saharan immigrants hang out in rappers’ gear in her courtyard. “We don’t have the same way of living,” Joyeux comments mildly. Her sister grumbles about Islamic veils, and says: “They do what they like.”
Many of the issues facing France come together in the Etats-Unis (“United States”) neighbourhood. Yet the people living here are seldom heard from. The neighbourhood is a mix of France’s two most marginalised groups: poor immigrants, and the poor indigenous white working class. Neither group has much of a voice in French public debate.
Whereas the immigrants are incessantly debated by others, poor whites around Europe are something of a forgotten class. The economic crisis hit them hard. In France, many white working-class people now support Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, who has an outside shot at getting elected president in 2017. In Lyon’s eighth arrondissement, which includes the Etats-Unis, more than 18 per cent of voters backed the FN in last year’s municipal elections. Given Lyon’s lack of an FN tradition, this was a shock.
George Soros’s liberal Open Society Foundations has just produced reports on six white working-class neighbourhoods across western Europe. The OSF studied poor whites much as it had previously studied European Muslims: as a disempowered group that should be heard. (Disclosure: I am a former sub-board member of the OSF and was involved in the research.) The OSF believes its report on the Etats-Unis neighbourhood is “the only empirical study on the majority population that has been conducted in France”. The resulting portrait helps elucidate how this class lives and thinks.
In May, I spent two days sitting at kitchen tables in the Etats-Unis, listening to people’s stories over endless cups of coffee. When I wrote about the OSF’s study of a white working-class Manchester neighbourhood last year, I found few inhabitants willing to speak. Most distrusted the British media, which they felt stigmatised their class as “white trash” or “chavs”. In Lyon, nobody seemed suspicious. Almost everyone brought a friend (or sister) along to the interview.
There were other contrasts with Manchester. Both neighbourhoods had excellent 1930s social housing. But in Manchester, much of it had been sold off. There were long waiting lists for the remaining homes. Poor whites in north Manchester lacked many other services, too: public transport was scanty and, with little state childcare or eldercare, lots of people were too busy looking after kids or grannies to take paid work.
By contrast, the Etats-Unis is something of a paradise. First, it’s in Lyon itself, not in one of France’s miserable distant suburbs. Second, the state is more present here than in Manchester. The French state swallows more than half of national income but gives a lot in return. In 2013, a gleaming new tramway opened on the Boulevard des Etats-Unis — “our TGV”, one proud resident called it. About 4,000-4,500 units of social housing are built in greater Lyon every year. The OSF report concludes: “Participants were satisfied with their experiences in health and social services and with living conditions.” The fact that poor people inhabit the magnificent Garnier flats is itself a strike for equality. France remains one of the world’s least unequal countries.
However, here too much is changing. The same wind blows in Lyon as in most of Europe. Christian Fèvre, a retired metalworker who still lives in his parents’ apartment where he was born, still amid their old furniture, still a tenant rather than a homeowner, worked for 35 years in a factory making transformers. “It was right next door,” he said. “I was happy.” When he started in 1974, the factory had more than 900 workers. Today it has 350 and falling, he said. Most other local factories have closed; one resident recalls the perfume factory literally exploding.
People in the Etats-Unis understand that most jobs nowadays require an education. Plumbers and mechanics are no longer respected, they complain. Many younger locals now continue their studies, aiming for office jobs. Magalie Guyonnet, a 37-year-old unemployed secretary, grumbled: “I am competing with youngsters coming out of school aged 25!” When she was 22, having a secretarial diploma was quite something. Now she feels left behind. I met her with her friend Lionel Muller, and he chided: “You can always find work if you want to.” Muller works two jobs: concierge and carer of elderly people. She riposted: “You’re in manual, I’m in cerebral,” and they began to bicker.