Nothing New Under the Fascist Sun
The National Front is temporarily defeated, but its durability and adaptability should not be underestimated.
In the weeks between the first and second rounds of France’s presidential election, many gloomily anticipated the continuation of the nightmare scenario that began with Brexit, emerged in full strength with Trump, and seemed to be crashing down on France. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front (FN), came in second, winning just over 20 percent of the vote, only a few points behind the centrist investment banker, Emmanuel Macron.
The day after her second-place finish, Le Pen announced that she would temporarily abandon her post as FN president to focus on the elections. Her decision aligns with her ongoing attempt to distance herself from her party’s ignoble history, but, in the context of French fascism’s history, her strategy actually fulfills the FN’s founding goals.
The Birth of Fascism in France
To provide the National Front’s history, we must understand the history of French reaction. Emerging out of the French Revolution, reactionaries organized against equality and democracy, in favor of crown and altar. Following a broad insurgency in the western region of the Vendée, whose emblem showed a cross cresting a heart, the forces of reaction happily greeted Napoleon Bonaparte’s empire. After his defeat, they settled for the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy and the rise of the Orléanist “citizen king” Louis-Philippe in 1830. Following another revolution in 1848 and an abortive attempt at a Second Republic, they used bloody repression and a rigged election to help reinstate the Bonapartist line under Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte III, the emperor’s nephew.
Sorry, but this article is available to active subscribers only. Please log in or become a subscriber.