French mayor removes EU flag, emphasising nationalist sentiments in Carcassonne
French citizens are removing the EU flag from public buildings, with Carcassonne’s mayor, Christophe Barthès, expressing support for the action in a viral social media post.
Recent actions by National Rally mayors to remove EU flags highlight a rising Eurosceptic sentiment, reflecting broader political trends and the party’s growing influence in French governance.
“Out with the European flags at the town hall, in with the French flags!” stated Christophe Barthès, the newly-elected mayor of Carcassonne.
Key developments
French citizens are removing the EU flag from local government buildings, led by newly-elected National Rally mayor Christophe Barthès of Carcassonne, stirring anti-EU sentiment in France.
The video showing the flag’s removal, posted on social media, reflects Barthès’s Eurosceptic beliefs, common among the National Rally, though it misrepresents widespread anti-EU activities across France.
Contrary to claims, no French law mandates the display of the EU flag on town halls, as such practices have been based on custom rather than legal obligation.
Are the French removing the EU flag from public buildings and is it illegal?
Published on •Updated
French citizens are tearing down the EU flag from town halls and schools to reclaim their country from Brussels, according to a viral X post that is fuelling a long-running anti-EU narrative depicting the bloc as “tyrannical”.
The post shows a video next to a picture of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. In the video we see a man taking down an EU flag that had been flying alongside the French and Occitan flags.
A reverse image search of the video leads us to the X account of Christophe Barthès, the newly-elected mayor of Carcassonne and a member of the far-right National Rally party, who posted the clip to his profile on 29 March.
“Out with the European flags at the town hall, in with the French flags!” he said.
The Carcassonne mayor’s office did not respond to our request for comment as of the time of publishing.
Nevertheless, the video is authentic and reflects Barthès’s Eurosceptic views, which are typical of the National Rally in general. However, it’s misleading to suggest that an anti-EU flag wave has swept through France.
Other newly-elected National Rally mayors have since done the same, such as Carla Muti in Canohès, near Perpignan.
Do town halls legally have to fly the European flag?
The story has also prompted misleading claims about whether flying European flags from public buildings in France is legally required.
Some social media users argue a 2019 law forces town halls in communes with more than 1,500 inhabitants to fly the French and European flags, as well as display France’s national motto (“liberté, égalité, fraternité”) and a portrait of the president.
However, there’s currently no French law requiring town halls to display the European flag. Those that have up until now have done so as a matter of custom rather than any legal obligation.
In fact, the same bill would also force them to fly the French flag, as even this is not legally required at the moment.
As things stand, the famous French tricolour flag only needs to be flown during national ceremonies, when welcoming foreign heads of state or government, or when it needs to be hung at half-mast during times of official mourning, according to France’s Ministry of the Interior.
A government directive specifies that the French flag should take the “place of honour”, meaning the European should be on the right from the building’s perspective and appearing on the left to a viewer standing in the street.
Nevertheless, there is another government directive saying that the EU flag must be flown on Europe Day, 9 May, and a law that says schools have to fly both the European and French flags all the time.
The 2013 “Peillon law” says that the French motto, the France’s tricolour flag and the European flag must be displayed on the facades of public and private secondary schools and educational establishments.
The ‘EU flag’ is actually the flag of Europe as a whole
The removal of the European flag is often seen as a slight against the European Union, but the flag actually finds its origins in the separate Council of Europe.
The pan-European human rights organisation, which counts 46 members compared to the EU’s 27, adopted the blue flag with 12 stars as a symbol to represent the continent in 1955.
As such, while the flag is most commonly associated with and used to represent the EU, it still technically covers a number of countries outside the bloc and the continent as a whole.