Jacobin Magazine: Fascism by Another Name

The 2015 French local and regional elections marked not only the government’s defeat and the Left’s collapse, but also the National Front’s (FN) breakthrough. The far-right party didn’t win any regions, but when compared to 2010, it tripled its vote count in the first-round elections and even won new voters between the first and second rounds. Between these results and polling, many expect the FN to perform much better than in 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen made it to the second round of the presidential election. [...]

On the one hand, some justifiably connect the far right’s rise to political and economic instability. Accordingly, Jacques Rancière depicts the FN as a “pure product of the Fifth Republic.” Others position it as a necessary side effect of neoliberalism. While this correctly places the fascist dynamic in the context of capitalism, it fails to capture its relative autonomy from capital’s immediate interests. [...]

Rather than fall into these traps, we should learn from historical studies of fascism and use their insights to shape our responses to the FN. When we do, we’ll see that we must reject not only the most violent expressions of xenophobia, but also the mainstream manifestations of racism that have overtaken French cultural and political life. Only by separating ourselves from both the far right and the extreme center can the Left defeat this rising threat. [...]

The illusion of a so-called transformation of the FN and of a “new FN” has met the party’s own narrative, popularized in recent years and according to which, since Marine Le Pen became the party’s main leader in 2011, the FN is no longer the far-right organization it used to be. This strategy, known as “de-demonization,” could not have been completed without help from journalists, policymakers (specifically Nicolas Sarkozy), and even some academics, all of whom legitimized her claims. Marine Le Pen’s takeover of the party and her open conflict with her father has then been taken as proof of the party’s fundamental transformation.

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