The 2026 municipal election campaign in Romans-sur-Isère, a town of 33,000 residents, unfolds in a heavy atmosphere. Three years after the murder of a teenager at a country ball in Crépol in 2023, fears and resentments linger. Outgoing mayor Marie-Hélène Thoraval struggles to ease these tensions, amplified by a national narrative of ethnic confrontation.
The village of Crépol in the Drôme department remains scarred by the murder of Thomas Perotto, a teenager stabbed on November 19, 2023, during a country ball. This event has solidified tensions between surrounding rural areas and the working-class neighborhoods of Romans-sur-Isère, located 20 kilometers to the south. Some Crépol residents, like Emilie, a 40-year-old former police officer, now carry a switchblade in their bag and avoid the town, particularly the La Monnaie district, from which some suspects under investigation originate.
Emilie, a mother who has voted far-right for eighteen years, says she once brought her category 1 Labrador to work for protection. Her husband, Julien, a building worker, voices intense anger: “If it had been me, I would have planted a bomb to blow it all up there. So what if there are 99% good and 1% bad.” By “there,” he means the urban areas seen as risky.
Another local, Christophe, a 43-year-old mason, tries to contextualize the incident: “Words came out wrong, the rugby players got scared, and it all went to hell.” Yet, the narrative pitting “Whites” against “Arabs” has taken hold in national media and politics, also shaping local discourse.
Marie-Hélène Thoraval, mayor of Romans-sur-Isère since 2014 and seeking re-election from the right, confronts this lingering shadow. Elected amid divisions, she has not managed to dispel the fears, making the electoral campaign especially burdensome in this Drôme town.
