(es) Vienna, June 19, 2024
Far-right, national-conservative, radical right, anti-Islam, nativist, Eurosceptic, also sometimes extreme right, populist, “alt-right”, neofascist, anti-immigration, nationalist, authoritarian, and can also be assorted combinations. What we also know is that they are mostly unable to agree on anything much.
In an excellent account, French Farce is back with a Bang, describing the chaotic state of play in French politics following President Macron’s decision to call a snap election, the Northern Irish novelist Robert McLiam Wilson describes some richly comic antics in the French National Assembly. Maybe the muddle will help Macron out of the dilemma of the rise of the Right in the European elections?
“Basically the French right divides into three main parties – Éric Zemmour’s Arabs Are Awful party, Jordan Bardella’s Jews Have Weird Elbows party and Éric Ciotti’s more moderate What’s a Little Deportation Between Friends party,” he writes.
“That last one might seem harsh (Ciotti’s Républicains used to be the French version of the Tories), but the idea of any moral distance between them and the extremists finally fell off the mantelpiece last week and, like fine china, it made a lovely tinkling sound when it shattered…
“On Wednesday, seeking an electoral pact with the hard right and fearful of being marginalised or sacked, Ciotti (small, bald, looks a bit like Phil Collins without the sexual charisma – big Roderick Spode vibes), well, the bold Éric locked himself inside the party HQ of Les Républicains and wouldn’t let anyone in. Yes, seriously. Party workers had to call around looking for someone with spare keys. And it was all deliciously filmed by delighted TV crews. By Thursday, he ended up getting sacked anyway.
“That is, until Friday, when there was a court hearing about the dismissal where Ciotti’s lawyer argued, among other things, that he should be allowed the freedom of the offices because he was only 5ft 2in and didn’t want to get thumped. I’m not making this up….”
The London Guardian yesterday published a helpful lexicon of the Far Right parties, or however they like to style themselves, based on the work of popu-list.org
The list is immensely long, and reminds of the spectacle of Le Pen welcoming fascistic party leaders in Strasbourg from soon-to-be New Europe in ca 2002. “These are our new friends from Eastern Europe,” said the then-leader of the Front National. “They can’t stand each other but I like them all.”
- AA.com.tr 19/06/24 How worried should we be about extreme right in Europe?
- Guardian, London 21/09/23 One in three Europeans vote anti-establishment