Fight against extremism: France exposes right-wing radicals with fact checks Hostage taking in Ulm (D): Perpetrator tries to escape – police arrest him

In Germany, an AfD candidate was elected mayor for the first time in December – in Pirna (40,000 inhabitants) in the state of Saxony. France already had such an election victory for the right in 1995.

Nearly thirty years ago, Jean-Marie Le Chevallier of the right-wing extremist National Front (FN) won the local elections in Toulon. He remained mayor of 180,000 inhabitants for six years; In 2001, he was convicted of corruption during his time in office. Since then, conservative Republicans have returned to power in the traditionally right-wing port city on the Mediterranean.

Since then, the debate has raged in France over whether and how to prevent election victories by ‘anti-republican’ forces. The left first relied on the ‘demonization’ of the FN; She called for a ‘cordon sanitary’, a security band, around the National Front of racist agitator Jean-Marie Le Pen. A ban on the party, which was founded, among others, by a veteran of the Waffen-SS, was also eagerly discussed in the past.

The moderate right has always rejected this, but they have participated in the exclusion of the ‘FN’, whose ‘N’ is pronounced ‘haine’ (hate). In this issue, the Republicans advocated ‘trivialization’: the Le Pen party is only a symptom of actual undesirable developments in the country and has no real chance of victory at the national level.

In 2002, conservative Gaullist Jacques Chirac nevertheless refused to participate in a TV debate with Jean-Marie Le Pen, who sensationally advanced to the second round of the presidential elections. Le Pen lost the presidential election by less than 18 percent. His daughter Marine Le Pen, who succeeded him, received 34 percent against Emmanuel Macron in 2017; In 2022, this amounted to more than 41 percent.

Demonization no longer works

And now that their entrance into the Élysée in the 2027 presidential elections becomes possible, the debate becomes more virulent than ever: what should we do so that the nation of enlightenment and human rights does not fall into the hands of the ‘extremes’? droite”, are the right-wing extremists falling?

The old debate – to demonize or downplay – has evolved. Because neither works anymore. Absolutely do not demonize with a moral club: at the European elections in June, Marine Le Pen’s “Rassemblement National” (RN), improved on the FN, was described as “right-wing populist” rather than “right-wing populist” far-right” , has become by far the strongest national party.

Macron has come under pressure as a result and is now changing tactics. At a government meeting, he declared that the fight against the Lepenists “can no longer be based on moral arguments”: “You cannot make millions of French people believe that they are fascists if they vote for RN.” Macron wants to beat Le Pen with his own weapons rather than someone else’s, as he made clear with his new immigration law.

The established party leadership agrees on one point: an electoral alliance with Le Pen is out of the question. Without a coalition in the National Assembly, an elected President Le Pen would not be able to govern.

However, the firewall is crumbling, not least among the conservative Republican base. Your right wing argues in a similar way to Le Pen, Macron is also getting closer. Unlike Chirac, he seeks debate with the Lepenists. In the two presidential TV debates in 2017 and 2022, he was accused of legitimizing his opponent as a ‘normal politician’.

Last October, the RN founder was allowed to participate in a major demonstration against anti-Semitism for the first time. This is despite the fact that several surveys by polling institutes confirm that Le Pen’s RN is the party in which anti-Semites are most numerous.

Another example of how the RN’s double discourse is coming to light: research by the American newspaper Washington Post showed that Jordan Bardella, the chairman of the RN, reproduced Russian positions almost verbatim after contact with Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, as if he were one Kremlin. spokesman.

The RN secretary apparently thinks more about Russia’s security than France’s, the Socialist Party in Paris noted. Macron MP Stéphane Vojetta added: “Voting for Le Pen and Bardella means voting for Putin.” (aargauerzeitung.ch)