One of the most important elements in French electoral politics as the century draws to a close, Jean-Marie Le Pen and his fascist National Front have succeeded by using a political formula similar to that being used by the American right. Founded by former Gestapo and SS collaborators and veterans of the Vichy fascist government that collaborated with the Nazis, the National Front is the proudly outspoken heir to the Vichy. Le Pen has gained political mileage by running against “corrupt politicians,” “immigrants” (people of color in particular), “crime in the streets,” “destructive foreign cultural influences” and “leftists.” All of these are frequent rhetorical targets of the American right-wing. In addition, the National Front is pursuing a strategy of establishing grass-roots, local political control in order to build a dominant power base — a strategy being pursued by the Christian right in the United States.
It’s deeply disturbing how often raging against the machine takes the form of xenophobic self-mutilation:
“While Ayrault called for Socialist and UMP voters to back whichever of the major parties’ candidates is best placed to ensure the FN does not win control of a town, the UMP is seen declining such a pact.”
So does the French center right now prefer the National Front over the Socialists? Is it tea time for France?
Whitewashing the National Front is turning out to be shockingly easy. All that’s required
is soap!is a soap opera:Regarding the longstanding “republican front” that called for the mainstream center-right and center-left parties to support each other when faced with the threat of the F. N. getting elected and how “Something had to change if the F.N. was to rule France one day”, keep in mind that something did change. The right-wing UMP abandoned it.
Continuing...
Well that sounded like an awful soap. You probably have to be in the target audience to really lose yourself in the story.