A brief tour of the far right: the US and France

22Feb12

From the US, this is an extract from a post on the nativist strain of Republicanism, from the excellent Sad Red Earth blog:

In “The Vice of the Extremes,” I wrote of the transformed GOP that

we have a major political party … that has descended to levels of anti-intellectual ignorance, corporate plutocracy, chauvinism, xenophobic and racial hostility, and militaristic belligerence that have probably not been seen from a major political party in a putative democracy outside of the Balkans since the early 1930s.

The Balkans reference is instructional, for Serbian nationalism – to refer back to Vandervoort and ProEnglish – has its roots in the politics of language.

The Serbian linguist Vuk Stefanović Karadžić is commonly considered the father of Serbian nationalism.^[1] Karadžić created a linguistic definition of the Serbs that included all speakers of the Štokavian dialect regardless of their religious affiliation or geographical origin.^[1]

Similarly, France’s National Front, famously led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, presents a

political profile … based on French nationalism. Its current policies include economic protectionism, a zero tolerance approach to order issues, and opposition to immigration. Since the 1990s, its stance on the European Union has grown increasingly eurosceptic. The party’s opposition to immigration is particularly focused on non-European immigration, and includes support for deporting illegal, criminal, and unemployed immigrants

The party promotes more

generally the creation of a “French and European renaissance.

These elements do not simply exist in the United States – one will find them anywhere – they are invited into the contemporary conservative movement, and no GOP leader or presidential candidate repudiates them.  Of course, in contemporary America, given the decades-long drive toward a more enlightened, equal apportionment of human dignity, and the felt need among nativists to obscure their true nature and lineage, they will now claim to be racialist not racist, white nationalist, not white supremacist, and amid all the threads of connection, cavil a new net of lies to deny connection.

From France, here is an article on Marine Le Pen’s National Front:

In a key campaign speech almost nine weeks ahead of France’s presidential elections, French far-right candidate Marine Le Pen slammed globalisation and immigration, warning of adverse effects on the country’s economy and national identity.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen slammed rival candidates on Sunday, calling them servants of the the banking and finance industries in a key election campaign speech in the northern city of Lille, only nine weeks ahead of presidential elections in France. “There is no left, there is no right, just two candidates who represent the interests of financial markets and the banks,” Le Pen said in reference to incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Party candidate François Hollande…

In an hour-long address, the far-right candidate took aim at the globalised economy and immigration, claiming they’re having a ravaging effect on France.

“We need to resist the free market policies that threaten our economy, and yes, even our identity,” Le Pen told cheering supporters. “And those princes of the finance and banking world who are nothing more than a global mafia and exploit man with no-one controlling them, ” the 43-year-old former lawyer added, once again infusing her speech with language more characteristic of the left than of the right.

 

“Patriots of the world, unite!” Le Pen clamoured at one point in her speech, and later argued that the human person needed to be “placed at the centre of the economy.”

Related articles

• French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s father gets suspended sentence over Nazi remarks (telegraph.co.uk)
• Rick Santorum’s Dinner With a White Nationalist (littlegreenfootballs.com)

Filed under: France, The right, USA   |  1 Comment
Tags: FN, Front National, Marine Le Pen, National Front, Republican Party, Serbian nationalism