Bally Bagayoko, the new mayor (La France Insoumise, radical left) of the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, in his City Hall, on March 28, 2026. CAMILLE MILLERAND FOR LE MONDE
"For now, he is in time out," joked Bally Bagayoko, holding a picture frame in his hands. It was a photo of Emmanuel Macron. Until two weeks ago, the photo of the president still hung on the blue walls of the mayor's office in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. Yet ever since Bagayoko, a member of the radical left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI) party, was elected as the city's new mayor, the image of Macron has been relegated to a corner. Taking down the president's portrait was the only personal touch that Bagayoko, who was directly elected in the first round of the municipal elections on March 15, has had time to make in his spacious new office, which still bears the hallmarks of a recent move.
Since then, Bagayoko, the first LFI mayor to lead a city of 150,000 inhabitants, has not had a moment's respite. "Homo sapiens," "great apes," "alpha male," "primitive tribe": He has faced these racist insults and more attacks, spouted on the "100% Politics" program of opinion channel CNews (France's equivalent of Fox News) and across social media platforms. On Wednesday, April 1, Bagayoko, who has called for the "shutdown of CNews," filed a complaint for "public insults based on ethnicity, nationality or religion" as well as for "defamation."
