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‘We cannot continue to label France’s far-right fascists – we must debate them instead’

It's the argument at the heart of France's government - how to defeat the far-right at the next elections. As politicians squabble over tactics, The Local spoke to French political experts about the strategies being employed.

Published: 13 June 2023 12:33 CEST

'We cannot continue to label France's far-right fascists - we must debate them instead'

National Assembly parliamentary group President for the French far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party Marine Le Pen delivers a speech (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

President Emmanuel Macron recently engaged in a rare public argument with his prime minister Elisabeth Borne – the subject at issue was how to deal with the far-right.

Borne, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, commented during an interview that Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party was the legacy of Philippe Pétain, who led France during the Vichy regime, cooperating with the Nazis and deporting Jewish people to concentration camps.

Macron said that the far-right cannot be defeated with moral arguments, telling his ministers “you won’t be able to make millions of French people who voted for the far-right believe that they are fascists”, adding that strategies and catch phrases “hailing from the 1990s” no longer work.

The next presidential elections are not until 2027, but it’s a sign of the worry over the prospect of a far-right victory that the government is engaging in public arguments on the topic.

And it’s not the only indication – the government’s spokesman Olivier Véran has recently embarked on trips to Denmark and Brazil, where his focus has been on the different methods in these countries for defeating the far-right.

Je me suis rendu au Brésil, un pays qui a conquis la démocratie mais qui a bien failli la perdre… pic.twitter.com/ax8lEyFHkG

— Olivier Véran (@olivierveran) May 23, 2023

Strategy debate

Jean-Yves Camus, a French political scientist specialising in the far-right and co-director of the Observatory for Political Radicalism at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, said that France’s priorities have been elsewhere – on political and economic issues such as pension reform and inflation – but he did note that Macron’s comments represent a possible shift in strategy in pushing back against the far-right.

“In my opinion, this is the best procedure to take, if we consider all other strategies to have failed”, explained Camus.

“It does not really matter whether Borne was correct or not. The priority is that a different technique must be taken. The far-right must be fought by deconstructing their programme, showing its failures and demonstrating what is not possible to apply – whether that be due to the confines of the French constitution, EU and international law, or simply because the statistics and references are not factual.

READ ALSO How far-right is Marine Le Pen?

“These days, about half of the French population sees Rassemblement National as a party like any other.

“Thirty years ago, when I started to discuss this phenomenon, everyone said the far-right had disappeared after 1945. They did not understand that it was possible for them to evolve.

“They have adapted well to modernity and the new rules regarding political communication and social media. They have managed to erase many of their historical roots, so that now, if you talk to Rassemblement National voters in Pas-de-Calais or along the Mediterranean, no one will say it’s a fascist party”.

John Lichfield, who has covered French politics as a journalist for decades, felt similarly.

“Borne is right that the DNA of the Le Pen movement is actually that of Vichy to a large extent. But Macron is also right in that doesn’t mean much to people anymore.

“The younger generations don’t have the same kind of allergic reaction to the word Vichy – and what happened during the war”, Lichfield explained during a recent episode of the Talking France podcast.

However, from his view, the strategy should include countering the far-right on moral grounds.

“It seems to me that you should do the two. Macron is probably right that the best way to tackle Marine Le Pen is to point out the absurd contradictions in many of her policies. But he went a bit too far when he said you shouldn’t attack the far-right on moral grounds.

“Despite all her efforts since 2010 to clean things up, it is pretty clear that one of the core drivers of the people who join the Rassemblement National party – maybe not the people who vote for it – is race.

“They are a racist party at their core. I think that is the kind of thing that needs to be said, and that is a moral argument rather than a political one”.

Other parties

The next presidential election is years away, but near identical results have been produced the last two times the French went to polls – a second round composed of Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, which Macron has won. In the 2022 election, Le Pen took 41.4 percent of the vote in the second round, to Macron’s 58.5 percent.

In 2027 Macron cannot stand, as French presidents are barred from serving more that two consecutive terms.

It’s far too early to predict the election, but the campaign certainly won’t be composed of just two parties – so what are the rest of France’s politicians doing to combat the threat of the far-right?

The previously centre-right Les Républicians – the party of De Gaulle, Chirac and Sarkozy – appear to be taking a strategy of trying to appear even more hardline on issues such as immigration than Le Pen.

But Camus said that Le Pen would have a simple response to this: to recognise the opportunistic nature of the LR pushing for immigration reform in this moment in particular.

“She can just point to Sarkozy, the last Les Républicains president, and reference how many immigrants he ‘let in'”.

Camus did not express much hope for the French Left either, saying there is “no possibility” of the leftist alliance Nupes reaching power in 2027 in its current form.

He said: “The French left is totally confused. The Nupes is dead one year after being created.

“If the French left wants to be effective, then sure it is well and good to look at issues through a moral and historical perspective, but we cannot do just that. Just saying that it is the party of the 1930s and 1940s that does not work anymore.”

Although Macron himself cannot stand in 2027, it’s highly likely that someone from his party will. In the meantime Macron will remain – barring unforeseen events – president for the next four years.

“The problem is that for many people, particularly workers, Emmanuel Macron is the incarnation of the elite. People do not want to listen to him,” warned Camus.

Nonetheless, Camus emphasised his support for Macron’s head-on approach. “It is time to debate – a tête à tête“, he said.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.