Far-right mayor in Elne renames René-Vautier cinema, calling name too 'political'

In Elne, a town in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France, the far-right mayor has removed the name of René-Vautier from the local cinema, judging the designation too 'political.' The decision to strip the name of the anticolonial activist from the venue is not an isolated case. It echoes the takeover of the cinema in Bruay-la-Buissière, in the Pas-de-Calais department, by the Rassemblement National (RN) mayor Ludovic Pajot. The move in Elne follows a pattern of far-right municipal interventions in cultural venues, with the removal of René-Vautier's name presented as a rejection of what the mayor considers an overly political label. René-Vautier was an anticolonialist activist, and his name had been attached to the cinema before the current mayor's decision to debaptize it. The report, published by Le Monde on October 7, 2026, frames the Elne case within a broader context of similar actions by far-right mayors, specifically citing the situation in Bruay-la-Buissière under Ludovic Pajot. No further details on the cinema's new name, the exact date of the renaming, or additional statements from the mayor were provided in the source material.