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Home , Dominique Venner, Jeune Nation, Michel Durafour, Yvan Blot

Words That Kill: Rhetoric and Reality in the Discourse of the Front National Palavras que matam: retórica e realidade da frente nacional francesa

Palabras que matan: la retórica y la realidad del frente nacional francés

Abstract Since ’s accession to the leadership of ’s National Front, in 2011, she has concertedly sought to “normalize” the party’s far-right political platform and rhetoric. In this respect, she has been wildly successful: party member- ship has doubled from 40,000 to 80,000, and its electoral base Richard Wolin has greatly expanded. Thus since the May 2014 European par- History and Political liamentary elections, the National Front has become France’s Science CUNY Graduate leading vote getter. In the first round of the December 2015 re- Center, New York gional elections, it attained an unprecedented 28% of the vote. [email protected] Given Europe’s ongoing migration crisis as well as the spate of recent terrorist attacks that has shaken confidence in the capaci- ty of France’s mainstream parties to keep the nation safe, many analysts have forecast a National Front victory in the upcoming 2017 presidential elections. The successful “normalization” of the National Front under Marine Le Pen’s leadership raises the impor- tant question: are the differences with the old National Front, as led by Marine’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen, disparities of substance or are they largely rhetorical? Attention to the subtleties and nu- ances of political language yield a results that are both revealing and highly disturbing.

Resumo Desde a ascensão de Marine Le Pen à liderança da Frente Nacional Francesa, em 2011, ela concertadamente procurou “nor- malizar” a plataforma política e a retórica do partido de extrema direita. A esse respeito, foi muito bem-sucedida: a filiação ao par- tido dobrou de 40 mil para 80 mil, e sua base eleitoral expandiu- -se enormemente. Assim, desde as eleições parlamentares euro- peias de maio de 2014, a Frente Nacional tornou-se a liderança de votos na França. No primeiro turno das eleições regionais de dezembro de 2015, atingiu 28% dos votos sem precedentes. Dada a crise europeia em curso da migração tanto quanto a onda de recentes ataques terroristas que abalaram a confiança na capa- cidade dos principais partidos políticos da França em manter a segurança da nação, muitos analistas previram uma vitória da Frente Nacional nas próximas eleições presidenciais de 2017. A “normalização” bem-sucedida da Frente Nacional sob a lideran- ça de Marine Le Pen levanta a importante questão: as diferenças com a velha Frente Nacional, como conduzida pelo pai de Marine, Jean-Marie Le Pen, são disparidades da substância ou, em grande parte, são retóricas? Atenção às sutilezas e nuanças da linguagem política produz resultados que são tanto reveladores quanto alta- mente perturbadores.

Resumen Desde que Marine Le Pen assumió la dirección del Front Nacional de Francia en 2011, ella trató de “normalizar” la platafor- ma política y la retórica del partido de extrema derecha. En este sentido, fue muy exitosa: el número de miembros del partido se duplicó de 40.000 a 80.000, y su base electoral se ha expandi- do enormemente. Por lo que, desde las elecciones al Parlamen- to Europeo en mayo de 2014, el Frente Nacional se assumió el liderazgo de la votación en Francia. En la primera vuelta de las elecciones regionales de diciembre de 2015, alcanzó el 28% de los votos sin precedentes. Dada la crisis europea de la migración en curso tanto como la ola de ataques terroristas recientes que sa- cudieron la confianza en la capacidad de los principales partidos políticos de Francia en el mantenimiento de la seguridad de la na- ción, muchos analistas predijeron una victoria del Front Nacional en las próximas elecciones presidenciales en 2017. Estes resulta- dos que ponen el Front Nacional en la delantera bajo el liderazgo de Marine Le Pen plantea la pregunta importante: las diferencias con el antiguo Front Nacional, como se lleva a cabo por el padre de Marina, Jean-Marie Le Pen son diferencias de fondo o son en gran parte de la retórica? Atención a las sutilezas y matices del lenguaje político produce resultados que son a la vez revelador como muy preocupante.

On May 21, 2013, the hexagon was took his own life. By the same token, May 26, traumatized by a horrific, headline-grabbing 1976 was the day that the twentieth century’s episode. A nattily attired man in his late 70s most prominent philosophical advocate of committed suicide by shooting himself with National Socialism, Martin Heidegger, brea- a pistol in front of 1500 worshipers attending thed his last breath. Tuesday morning services at the Notre Dame In order to explain his actions, Venner cathedral in central . The man’s name invoked the names of three prominent fellow was . suicides he viewed as fraternal spirits: two Venner’s suicide note bore the rather French literati who had been collaborateurs curious title, “The May 26 Protest and Hei- and enthusiasts of fascism in its French itera- degger”. Thereby, he alluded to an uncanny tion, Henry de Montherlant (1895-1972) and confluence of events: the next “Manif pour (1893-1945); and, fi- Tous” demonstration – the ongoing right- nally, the Japanese ultra-nationalist writer, -wing protest movement against gay marria- Yukio Mishima. ge which, since 2013, has upset the French As the foregoing details attest, Venner’s political status quo – had been scheduled to act was indisputably meant to be a political take place on May 26, five days after Venner gesture.

38 Impulso, Piracicaba • 27(69), 37-47, maio-ago. 2017 • ISSN Impresso: 0103-7676 • ISSN Eletrônico: 2236-9767 In his suicide note, which was read aloud ce from their slumber.”1 What is astonishing by a friend later in the day on a right-wing ra- about this statement is that, despite Le Pen’s dio station, Venner provided the following knowledge of Venner’s checkered past as an justification of his shocking deed: anti-republican, far-right political activist and conspirator, she had no compunction about I revolt . . . against individual desi- characterizing his suicide – a blasphemous act res that have destroyed the pillars that was committed in France’s most venera- of [French] identity [ancrages iden- ted religious sanctuary – as an inherently prai- titaires], notably, the family, the seworthy deed. intimate foundation of our age-old Dominque Venner, who was born in 1935, [multimillénaire] civilization. Al- is someone who might be described as an inhe- though I defend the identities of all rently dubious figure. For nearly six decades, peoples in their native lands, I take he was an animating and rather shady presen- umbrage at the crime committed by ce among neo-Nazi and extreme-right groups those who seek to replace our [Eu- that flourished on the margins of French so- ropean] populations. ciety. During the 1950s, Venner was one of the founders of : an anti-Republican Here, it is worth noting that Venner’s organization that was comprised of neofas- concluding allusion to “population replace- cists, anti-Semites, and former Vichyites. . ment” is a standard New Right/Nouvelle Droi- During the 1950s and early 1960s, Jeune te ideological coinage, insinuating that the Nation militants were passionately engaged goal of immigration policy is to supplant eth- in the struggle for French Algeria. Prior to nic Europeans with alien races that hail from founding Jeune Nation, Venner had served as the ghettoes of the developing world. Today, a paratrooper in the sanguinary . one of the linchpins the febrile far-right world- Following the Battle of Algiers (1957), Jeune view is the idea that immigration is part of a Nation acted as the political wing of the OAS “liberal,” “cosmopolitan” plot whose goal is (Organisation de l’armée secrète), whose acts to decimate indigenous Europeans. of terrorism – including a failed assassination On first view, the allusion to Heidegger in attempt against – brought the title of Venner’s note might seem, gratui- metropolitan France to the brink of civil war. tous or obscure. However, nine years earlier, In May 1958, a few days after de Gaulle’s Venner had had been one of the co-founders coup, Jeune Nation was banned for sedition. of the “Bloc Identitaire,” a European-wide, Three years later, as the OAS attacks reached chauvinistic, anti-immigrant movement. And fever pitch following a failed summons to in- among the so-called “identitarians,” Heide- surrection, Venner and five other Jeune Na- gger, on the basis of his right-wing, völkisch tion activists were arrested and sentenced to views, is frequently celebrated as a renowned prison for sedition. ideological precursor. Upon emerging from prison in 1963, A few hours after Venner’s carefully Venner well nigh single-handedly reconcei- choreographed finale at the Notre Dame Ca- ved the paradigm of postwar European neo- thedral, National Front leader Marine Le Pen fascism, redirecting its focus away from past – who, according to most opinion polls is the struggles that had already been lost – e.g., the frontrunner in the presidential election sche- Third Reich, the Vichy regime, and French Al- duled for spring 2017 – sent out the following heartfelt condolence tweet: “We wish to con- 1 Cited in Le Monde, May 22, 2013: “Tout notre respect à vey our wholehearted respect for Dominique Dominique Venner dont le dernier geste, éminemment Venner, whose final gesture, an eminently po- politique, aura été de tenter de réveiller le peuple de litical act, sought to bestir the people of Fran- France. MLP.”

Impulso, Piracicaba • 27(69), 37-47, maio-ago. 2017 • ISSN Impresso: 0103-7676 • ISSN Eletrônico: 2236-9767 39 geria – and toward the future in which the go- laying the ideological groundwork for a fu- als of Aryan superiority could be realized on a ture seizure of power seems to have paid off pan-European scale. As Venner asserted in his handsomely. During the 1980s, a number of 1963 influential pamphlet, Qu’est-ce que c’est prominent New Rightists – , Bruno que le nationalisme: Gollnisch, Jean-Yves Le Gallou, and Bruno Mégret – migrated from GRECE and its sister Militants of a white nation need to organizations to positions of influence and le- find ideological sustenance beyond adership within National Front.3 their borders: support that explains In assessing the ’s ende- their struggle, praises their coura- mic fear of métissage or “ethnic mixing,” it is ge… and that awakens the feeling not hard to discern its manifestly racist sub- of struggle for survival among whi- text or gist: it seeks to pit “Aryans” or “Indo- te peoples everywhere against tho- -Europeans” against non-European peoples se who seek to destroy them 2 (VEN- worldwide. Thereby, the Bloc identitaire, whi- NER QUOTE, Algazy, 172-73). ch one might accurately describe as one of the Nouvelle Droite’s stepchildren, in many At around the same time, Venner also respects has sought to update the catechism founded a “metapolitical” organization, “Eu- of European as outlined by Comte Ar- rope-Action,” that featured a journal of the thur de Gobineau, the author of On the Origins same name. of the Inequality Among the Races (1851-54). Shortly after Europe-Action was esta- According to Gobineau, racial mixing le- blished, Venner discovered an ideal protégé: ads to the “exhaustion” of Aryan stock, a pro- a 22-year-old university student named Alain cess of depletion that culminates inexorably in de Benoist (1942-). In what, in retrospect, se- a condition of generalized cultural stagnation. ems to be a sinister case of pre-established As Gobineau observes: “The mixing of blood harmony, de Benoist, as the inheritor and be- is the generative motor [and] the destructive neficiary of Europe-Action’s neofascist world- evil of all civilization” – a tendency that cul- view, would soon become the mastermind of minates in the “confusions” and “disorders” the Nouvelle Droite. Ultimately, the Nouvelle of “democratic egalitarianism.” Consequen- Droite’s strategy of “total ideological satu- tly, “When the majority of citizens sense that ration” – an orientation that was inspired by mixed blood is coursing through their veins, Venner’s “metapolitical” approach – would they feel compelled to affirm that all men are come to fruition two decades later with the equal, thereby elevating their own condition National Front’s political breakthrough in the to a universal and absolute truth.”4 1984 elections for the . In retrospect, the ideational seeds of 3 See, Timothy McCulloch, “The Nouvelle Droite in the National Front’s [FN] political ascendancy the 1980s and 1990s: Ideology and Entryism, the Relationship with the Front National,” French Politics were planted during the 1960s with the pro- 4, (2006), 158-59: Whereas “in 1980, there were gram of neofascist intellectual renewal that no nouvelle droitistes in the politburo of the FN, by was nurtured by Europe-Action and its va- 1994, there were six, . . . Bruno Mégret was delegate rious successor organizations such as GRECE general in charge of party studies, propaganda, training, and communication, while Yvan Blot the was (Groupement de Recherche et Etudes sur la the personal adviser of Jean-Marie Le Pen . . . Without Culture Européene), which was the brain- this evolution in Nouvelle Droite influence, it is highly child of de Benoist and his associates. In this unlikely the FN would have incorporated concepts respect, Venner’s “metapolitical” strategy such as” National preference” into party policy.” 4 , Essai sur l’inégalité des races of shunning institutional politics in favor of humaines (1853-55), (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1983), 344, 173. See also, Pierre-André Taguieff, La Couleur et la Sang: Doctrines Racistes à la française 2 Venner, Europe-Action, (May 1963), 5. (Paris: Mille et Une Nuit, 1998), 36.

40 Impulso, Piracicaba • 27(69), 37-47, maio-ago. 2017 • ISSN Impresso: 0103-7676 • ISSN Eletrônico: 2236-9767 I have treated the rather bizarre Domini- At the time, prominent among French que Venner episode at some length insofar as far-right circles were several members of the it illustrates my main thesis that under Marine Waffen SS Charlemagne Brigade (e.g., Francois Le Pen, “the FN of [today remains] a far-right Brignaud); but also, a number of former OAS party. It is not a new party. It is simply and militants, many of whom, like Dominique Ven- logically the extension of its predecessor. Its ner, had been imprisoned for treason during history began in autumn 1972 and continues the Algerian war. These ex-OAS fighters were today” (Igounet). consumed with a visceral hatred of President Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, Charles de Gaulle for having betrayed the cau- founded the National Front in 1972. Now 88, se of French Algeria. On these grounds, they Jean-Marie began his political career in the denounced the Fifth Republic as politically 1950s as a member of a short-lived, right-wing illegitimate, just as, during the 1930s, the va- populist party founded by Pierre Poujade. rious “leagues” and integral nationalists allied Prior to entering politics, the elder Le Pen ser- with Action Française had excoriated the Third ved as a foot soldier in French Indochina and Republic, embracing the watchword, “mieux then as a paratrooper during the Algerian war Hitler que Blum” (better Hitler than Popular (1954-62). In the past, he has justified – even Front prime minister Léon Blum). flaunted – the French army’s use of torture True to his political roots, over the ye- against Algerian civilians. ars, the elder Le Pen gained notoriety as a During the 1960s, Le Pen founded a “re- result of a series of anti-Semitic assertions cord company” that specialized in the distri- and outré pronouncements. He has gone on bution of Nazi propaganda. Among its more record saying that things weren’t so bad for memorable titles were “Voices and Songs of France during the Nazi occupation (1940-44). the German Revolution, 1933-39” and “Wehr- On more than one occasion, he has claimed macht au combat, 1941-42.” In 1965, for these that, in the course of World War II, the Holo- infractions, and Le Pen was fined Fr.10,000 caust was a mere “detail.” In commenting on and given a two-month suspended prison sen- Jewish journalists or politicians, he has resor- tence for “apologizing for war crimes.” ted to crude puns that allude to the Final Solu- The following remarks that Le Pen made tion: “Durafour crématoire” to refer to then– during the late 1960s offer useful insight into Minister of Public Service Michel Durafour; for his political worldview at the time: entertainer Patrick Bruel, Le Pen threatened to provide a “fournée” or “oven,” since in In an epic where atheism is gro- French “brûler” means “to burn.” Because wing by the day, young people various form of hate speech, including Holo- need order and having disappeared caust denial, are criminal offenses in France, in an apocalypse of fire, bombs, and the elder Le Pen has been prosecuted and fi- blood, Hitler’s soldiers have beco- ned on at least 19 occasions. me martyrs . . . searching for purity, The “Bruel-fournée” episode occurred even if it’s a purity that is allied with in June 2014, just a few weeks following the evil (J. ALGAZY, 73). stability. Given National Front’s stunning breakthrough in the the precipitous decline of ‘morals’ European parliamentary elections. In other [moeurs], there is all the more need words, just as it appeared that Marine Le for a moral order to buttress them. Pen’s strategy of “normalization” had been Today, young people desire certi- successful, Jean-Marie’s gaffe threatened to tude . . . From this perspective, the relegate it once again to the political fringe. SS, with its uniform, is like the priest Marine Le Pen’s reaction was forceful and with his cassock [soutane]. swift: She demonstratively instituted a party

Impulso, Piracicaba • 27(69), 37-47, maio-ago. 2017 • ISSN Impresso: 0103-7676 • ISSN Eletrônico: 2236-9767 41 ban against her father. However, what see- tes an impressive bit of lexical sleight-of-hand med to trouble her was less the anti-Semitic – has consisted in the adoption of orthodox tenor of the elder Le Pen’s remarks than that French Republican rhetoric. Thereby, she has he had made them publicly. Thus in commen- sought to mask the party’s “national revolu- ting on her father’s tasteless wordplay, Mari- tionary” origins among neofascists and OAS ne claimed that the problem lay chiefly with types in order to reassure French voters of the “malevolent interpretation” to which the FN’s constitutional bona fides and politi- they had been subjected by the French jour- cal legitimacy. nalists, rather than his comments per se. In this respect, one of Marine Le Pen’s Historically, the elder Le Pen’s publicity- key terminological innovations has been her -mongering tactics were inordinately succes- embrace of what the French call “laicité” sful in garnering attention for the National or secularism. Although, prima facie, such Front cause. His efforts to position the FN as usage may not seem controversial, it is also a credible alternative to France’s main center- fraught insofar as it risks offending so-called -right and center-left parties, the RPR (Ras- “integrists” among the FN’s more traditional semblement pour la République; now, the Re- “Catholic wing.” For this reason, the recent publicans) and the Socialists, crested in 2002 controversy over gay marriage – la manif pour when, in an event that the French still regard tous – has threatened to jeopardize Marine Le as the political shock of a lifetime, the National Pen’s “modernization” strategy. And on the- Front succeeded in edging out se grounds, she has disdained the headline- candidate Lionel Jospin in the first round of -grabbing anti-gay marriage movement, so that year’s presidential elections [2017]. dear to French conservatives, declining to en- However, two weeks later, the National dorse it and shunning its sizeable rallies. Front was soundly defeated in the second By the same token, Marine Le Pen’s ad- round. It soon became clear that, under Jean- vocacy of “laïcité” has yielded a number of -Marie’s leadership, the party had reached its distinct, concrete political advantages. Pro- zenith of popular support. Moreover, in the minent among those advantages is that the 2007 presidential elections, the party faltered appeal to laïcité allows Le Pen a respectable, badly: Its share of the electorate dwindled to constitutional basis to rail against the dangers 10 percent – a 7 percent diminution in compa- of Islam without mentioning the word and – rison with its 2002 results – and it tumbled to in stark contrast with Le Pen senior – without fourth place among French political parties. appearing racist. In this respect, as the recent, From the moment she inherited her high-profile controversies over the Islamic father’s mantle as party leader, in 2011, Ma- head scarf (Foulard) and the “burkini” show, rine Le Pen’s main goal has been to endow her views appear to be no different than ar- the National Front with a veneer of political ch-republicans among the Socialists and the respectability in order to significantly expand conservatives, who also censure public ex- the party’s electoral base – an objective that pressions of religious loyalty – unless, of cour- had proved next to impossible under Jean- se, those expressions happen to assume the -Marie’s erratic stewardship. In this respect, form of a cross. she has been wildly successful, and the Na- A watershed moment in the National tional Front’s political fortunes have escala- Front’s political fortunes arrived with the May ted correspondingly. Estimates suggest that 2014 elections to the European Parliament. under her leadership party membership has The National Front readily outshone the com- doubled, from 40,000 to 80,000 members. petition – Hollande’s Socialists and Nicolas One of the core elements of Marine Le Sarkozy’s UMP (Union pour un mouvement Pen’s “normalization” (dédiabolisation) stra- populaire). With 25 percent of the vote, it suc- tegy – and one that, taken by itself, constitu- ceeded in becoming France’s leading political

42 Impulso, Piracicaba • 27(69), 37-47, maio-ago. 2017 • ISSN Impresso: 0103-7676 • ISSN Eletrônico: 2236-9767 vote getter. Then, in December 2015, capita- Since, in the aftermath of World War II, lizing on the rising tide of Islamophobia that old-style European racism had been largely followed the devastating November 13 Paris discredited, in order to rehabilitate neofascist terror attacks, the National Front’s share of political goals a novel approach was needed. the electorate soared to 28 percent in the first The new strategy consisted in appropriating round of regional elections – although Natio- the language of “tolerance” and “self-deter- nal Front candidates were denied the major mination” commonly associated with liberal political breakthrough that many political ex- democracy for the sake of establishing an perts had forecast. authoritarian, ethnically homogeneous po- Nevertheless, in the lead-up to next lity. Commentators have denominated the year’s presidential elections, and with Nouvelle Droite approach “differentialist ra- France’s mainstream political parties in a sta- cism,” since foremost among the “rights” it te of considerable disarray – at 12 percent, misleadingly invokes in order to expose the President François Hollande’s approval rating “hypocrisy” of liberal claims to tolerance is is the lowest of any postwar French head of the “right to difference.” state – there are few grounds to dispute the, According to the paradigm of diffe- disturbing prognosis that France’s political fu- rentialist racism it is the representatives of ture belongs to the National Front. France’s republican status quo who foment Hence, the question of the hour seems intolerance, insofar as, by encouraging mul- to be: Once one penetrates the thick rhetori- ticulturalism and racial mixing (métissage), cal smokescreen, are there genuine differen- they stifle the self-determination of peoples ces of substance between the two Le Pens, along ethnic lines. As Le Pen senior, relying on père and fille? Here, the answer seems to be a the “clash of civilizations” paradigm, never resounding “no.” tired of pointing out, “multicultural societies The strategy of meretriciously invoking are multi-conflictual societies.” Thus in the Na- the precepts of political liberalism to mask tional Front’s political lexicon, “multicultura- an ethnocentric and xenophobic agenda was lism” has become a euphemism for “miscege- pioneered by the Nouvelle Droite (New Right) nation,” and the “right to difference” a coded during the 1980s. This approach was concei- expression for the non-acceptance of and ved and popularized by an influential group refusal to tolerate North African immigrants of right-wing publicists associated with two and other minorities. The National Front con- well-funded, far-right think tanks: the Club de tends that, although representatives of the L’Horloge and GRECE. Alluding to the Italian democratic status quo purport to defend ba- Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s notion sic rights such as freedom of speech and free- of hegemony, the Nouvelle Droite’s intention dom of assembly, such claims are hypocritical, was to facilitate a so-called “Gramscism of insofar as the National Front and its followers the Right.” Its objective was to counter the are forbidden from employing these free- post-1968 predominance of left-wing political doms for their desired political ends: the pro- ideas by furtively introducing a discursively mulgation of legislation that would penalize palatable version of neofascist ideology. The and vilify vulnerable immigrants. operative assumption was that ideational Since, by now, many of these immigrants domination was a necessary prelude to the have become French citizens, the National attainment of political power. As Jean-Marie Front program raises the specter of the revo- Le Pen explained, revealingly, in his book, Les cation of French citizenship in specific cases – a Français d’abord: “Semantics are not neutral. practice that has not occurred in France since One utilizes them like weapons in a combat the Vichy regime. A content-analysis of Mari- where, at times, words kill more assuredly ne Le Pen’s speeches reveals that she consis- than bullets.” tently distinguishes between “French citizens

Impulso, Piracicaba • 27(69), 37-47, maio-ago. 2017 • ISSN Impresso: 0103-7676 • ISSN Eletrônico: 2236-9767 43 who were born in France of at least one French a more recent crop of purportedly “unassimi- parent” and everyone else. In essence, Le Pen lable,” African migrants. The implicit assump- has effectively reconceived the definition of ci- tion is that, whereas ethnically similar immi- tizenship in order to distinguish between first grants will blend in over time, non-European – and second-class citizens – thereby raising immigrants – whose very presence, in many the Orwellian prospect that, in certain cases, cases, is a painful reminder of the legacy of immigrants would be subject to having their French colonialism – will not. As Marine Le citizenship retroactively annulled. Pen, speaking of non-European immigrants, In her speeches, Marine Le Pen frequen- indelicately put it, “their attitudes and ways tly seeks to turn the tables on mainstream de- of being in society…are in total contradiction fenders of civic and political equality. She por- with the makeup of the French soul [sic].” trays the National Front and its followers as When all is said and done, the National victims and martyrs, alleging that the political Front’s pseudo-libertarian appeals to political establishment unfairly champions the civil li- pluralism and the right to ethnic self-deter- berties of immigrants, while suppressing tho- mination are little more than a swindle. They se of Frontists. (The party name itself is remi- conceal a desire to return to the program of niscent of anti-republican groups that, during “integral ” that, during the early the 1930s, actively – and, at times, violently decades of the 20th century, was pioneered – contested the Third Republic’s legitimacy.) by anti-Dreyfusards such as Maurice Barrès In a parallel vein, she contends that, where- and . Both Barrès and Maur- as the National Front seeks to represent the ras held the egalitarian ideals of French Repu- interest of common men and women –the de- blicanism in contempt and sought to supplant nizens of la France profonde, who Le Pen and them with the values of an ethnically homo- her allies allege are the forgotten victims of geneous, authoritarian society. As Barrès de- globalization – at nearly every turn, self-inte- clared in Scènes et doctrines du nationalism, “I rested bureaucrats in Brussels, the seat of the enter into revolt against laws that are not the European Commission, seek to frustrate their laws of my race.” “Nationalism means resol- efforts. Recourse to a language of “plots” ving all questions on the basis of French inte- and “conspiracies” – purported “enemies of rests.” In opposition to the Dreyfusards, Bar- the people” who are threatening the nation rès asserted that universal claims to justice from all sides – is a recurrent leitmotif in the or truth were chimerical. Instead, there were rhetorical arsenal of fascist demagogues. only a series of differential national truths. Among a majority of French Catholics, Both then and now, integral who have recently been active in the massive nationalism’s objective has been to replace protests against gay marriage known as “La the values of civic nationalism – the “ideas of Manif pour Tous” (“Demonstrations for All”), 1789” – with the chauvinistic and prejudice-la- these images of persecution, which overlap den conception of ethnic nationalism. The ul- with the history of Christian martyrdom – in timate goal is to redefine citizenship in accor- particular, the Joan of Arc mythologem that dance with the precepts of ethnic belonging Jean-Marie Le Pen was especially fond of in- (jus sanguinis), as opposed to equality before voking – have been well received. But they the law (jus soli). also play on the more general fears of Chris- In a New York Times op-ed last June con- tian Europe’s “inundation” by hordes of Mus- gratulating the British on the Brexit result and lim non-believers. The National Front’s adept- urging other European nations to follow suit, ness at the art of racial coding also emerges in Marine Le Pen openly betrayed her indebted- the contrasts its leaders are fond of drawing ness to the political lineage of integral natio- between a previous generation of “success- nalism by alleging that only the existence of ful” (read “white”) European immigrants and a “homogeneous European people” could

44 Impulso, Piracicaba • 27(69), 37-47, maio-ago. 2017 • ISSN Impresso: 0103-7676 • ISSN Eletrônico: 2236-9767 provide a legitimate basis for the European tes employ to incite a frenzy of xenophobia Union. In the very next breath, she gainsaid among their credulous supporters. the idea that “a Polish member of the Euro- During the 1930s, the program of inte- pean Parliament has the legitimacy to make gral nationalism came to fruition in the mas- law for the Spanish.” But why shouldn’t this sive street protests orchestrated by far-right be the case insofar as Poles and Spaniards parties against so-called métis (non-white im- belong to a common, supranational legal and migrants). It culminated in the proto-fascist, political order, viz., the EU? [legislation is not anti-republican rallying cry, “Better Hitler race dependent but dependent on “princi- than [Popular Front leader] Léon Blum,” who ple” – modern natural law.] was both a Socialist and a Jew. Under Marshal What Le Pen is in essence proposing Pétain’s collaborationist Vichy government – a regime that Le Pen senior openly views with is that the right to legislate does not derive nostalgia – immigrants were stripped of their from one’s legal status but, instead, is a func- civil and political rights, and new laws were tion of ethnicity. Thus according to the stipu- passed privileging Français de souche or eth- lations of “Le Pen family values” – which, in nic French. In fall 1940, French Jews – many a worrisome trend, are increasingly gaining of whom had resided in France for centuries currency throughout the continent – only eth- – were de-emancipated: deprived of civil and nic Poles have the right to legislate in Poland, political liberties and proscribed from a varie- ethnic Spaniards in Spain, Français de souche ty of influential professions (law, journalism, or “ethnic French” in France, and so forth. publishing, etc.). In retrospect, these measu- One can only begin to imagine the politi- res were a statutory prelude to the Vichy au- cal chaos that would ensue from the attempt thorities’ deportation of some 75,000 Jews to to enact the National Front’s program of “di- Nazi death camps. fferentialist racism” on a European scale. Mo- In contemporary Europe, the National reover, generally speaking, claims to ethnic Front’s attempt to reintroduce ethnicity as or national homogeneity are a political ruse the defining criterion of politics – “Les Fran- or fiction contrived by political charlatans in çais d’Abord!” (“Those who are French come order to further their own, persecutory ideo- first!”) is a popular National Front slogan – is logical ends. hardly unique. Its approach is shared by the Once one ignites the political fuse of vast majority of Europe’s far-right, authori- ethnopopulism, thereby placing various eth- tarian populist parties. In a disturbing trend, nic and national groups in competition with European nations that had previously been one another, there is no logical stopping more or less free of far-right political influen- point. France alone is comprised of Bretons, ce have recently succumbed. Recently, the has Normans, Alsatians, Basques, and Corsicans. made strides in Germany, especially among How might one decide among these various the (the German translation of groups which is genuinely “French,” or which the French “Nouvelle Droite”) brain trust ani- among them should be entitled to secede in mating far-right parties such as the Austrian accordance with the “right to national self- Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Alternative für -determination” that is disingenuously vaun- Deutschland.5 ted by the Le Pens? After all, the contemporary inhabitants of these regions are the product of centuries 5 For the relevant background, see Jean-Paul Gautier, Lex of migrations and cross-cultural contact. On Extrêmes droites en France: de la traversée du désert à this basis alone, it is indisputable that, when l’ascension du Front National: 1945-2008 (Paris: Editions Syllepse, 2009), especially, chapter 10, “L’Impasse du questions of political right or legitimacy arise, Troisième voie et la naissance du Bloc identitaire,” 301- to invoke ethnicity as a criterion is a phantasm 332. On the German New Right, see Sebastian Maass, – an ideological contrivance that political eli- Die Geschichte der Neuen Rechten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Kiel: Regin Verlag, 2014).

Impulso, Piracicaba • 27(69), 37-47, maio-ago. 2017 • ISSN Impresso: 0103-7676 • ISSN Eletrônico: 2236-9767 45 In the German regional elections last morable illustration of the differentialist ra- March, the far-right Alternative for Germany cism credo when he avowed, “I love North (AfD) party made significant inroads and is Africans, but their place is in the Maghreb, currently represented in eight of the 16 state not in Metropolitan France.” On another oc- legislatures. In the eastern state of Saxony- casion, Le Pen sketched his infamous “con- -Anhalt, the AfD’s share of the electorate rose centric circle” approach to politics: “I like my to an alarming 24 percent. Apparently, AfD daughters better than my cousins, my cousins leader Frauke Petry’s recent suggestion that, better than my neighbors, my neighbors bet- in the future, German border guards should ter than strangers, and strangers better than use firearms to keep out unwanted -asylum foes.” In other words: not equality before the -seekers and prospective immigrants failed to law, but blood and ethnicity are the defining deter voters, despite the fact that, in the eyes criteria of politics. Four years ago, when Le of many Germans, it touched a raw nerve in Pen’s granddaughter, the 25 year-old Marion Germany’s political history. Maréchal-Le Pen was elected as the youngest Earlier this month, in a stunning political deputy ever to the French National Assembly, development, the AfD outpolled Chancellor the incorrigible Jean-Marie Le Pen remarked: Angela Merkel’s CDU in her home state of “c’est une bonne race!” Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. As things now stand, France is home to In many respects, the situation in Ger- some 4-to-5 million Muslim immigrants. One many is a microcosm of a more general poli- can only begin to imagine the types of dis- tical trend. Across the continent, the mains- criminatory legislation – not to mention the tream center-left and center-right parties find scale of the deportations – that would likely themselves in the throes of a profound crisis. ensue should the National Front accede to Voters have increasingly lost confidence in power. During the 1990s, Interior Minister their pledges to remedy the precipitous rise Charles Pasqua, then a member of Prime Mi- in socioeconomic inequality that ensued in nister ’s cabinet, sadistically the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Nor did fantasized about “charter flights for immi- the European Union’s arrogant and heartless grants, from which one does not return.” The mishandling of last year’s Greek debt crisis Pasqua episode illustrates the capacity of far- enhance voter confidence in its efficacy and -right parties to determine the national poli- sincerity. tical agenda even prior to their accession to Currently, with youth unemployment political power. hovering around 50 percent mark in some of When all is said and done, how concer- Europe’s southern tier (notably Greece and ned should we be about the FN’s seemingly Spain), the millennial generation’s dreams of implacable rise under Marine Le Pen in view prosperity have been dashed. And thus, ra- of France’s impending presidential elections, dical political alternatives are being sought, which are slated for spring 2017? Here, it’s im- regardless of the costs or risks. In Greece portant to keep things in perspective. Hereto- and Spain, this mood has benefited left-wing fore, France’s two-round, majoritarian voting parties like Syriza and Podemos. In Northern system has proven a highly effective mecha- Europe, conversely, it has enhanced the stan- nism of blocking the FN’s aspirations to be a ding of a panoply of far-right parties that have governing party – or, as Marine Le Pen has openly encouraged a return to the integral na- stated, to effect the transition from a party tionalist agenda of the 1930s: the misleadingly of “trailblazers” to one of “institution buil- named “Freedom Parties” in Austria and the ders” (“Au temps des éveilleurs doit succéder Netherlands; and in Scandinavia, the Danish celui des bâtisseurs”). Thus despite receiving People’s Party and the Sweden Democrats. relatively high scores in the first round (in Jean-Marie Le Pen once offered a me- the past, partly as a protest vote against the

46 Impulso, Piracicaba • 27(69), 37-47, maio-ago. 2017 • ISSN Impresso: 0103-7676 • ISSN Eletrônico: 2236-9767 ineptitude of France’s mainstream parties), Assembly, three deputies to the European they have been effectively “blocked” on the Parliament, 1500 members of city councils, second round – as occurred, for example, in eleven mayors, and 110 seats on regional last December’s regional elections. councils – in sum, a veritable pittance in com- The upshot of this state of affairs, whi- parison with France’s overall total of 562,000 ch should not be lost sight of, is that at pre- elected officials. sent the FN’s level of political representation is modest. Currently, the FN is able to claim Submetido em: 25-9-2017 merely two representatives to the National Aceito em: 5-10-2017

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