Tagged with Marine Le Pen

Emmanuel Macron and Neoliberalism

And breathe. Emmanuel Macron crushed Marine Le Pen in the second round of the French presidential elections by 66.1% to 33.9%. But that is no cause for celebration. Le Pen’s rebranded fascism was found beguiling enough for a third of voters, which is double what daddy got when he broke through to the run off in 2002. Amid the schmaltzy celebrations and feting of Macron as a centrist hero up there with Blair and Obama, serious questions need posing and answers found if this is to be the peak of the French far right’s advance.

Unfortunately, the shiny new president is clueless and uninterested in the dynamics driving Le Pen’s support. While a Macron win was and would always be preferable to a fascist victory, he will not solve France’s problems. He’s hell bent on exacerbating them. As we have seen with the collapsed of the Socialists and the abysmal performance of Francois Hollande, their humiliation in this election and likely wipe out in the parliamentary elections next month is a calamity of their own making. Continue reading →

Why was a fascist on the Andrew Marr Show?

Marine Le PenWhen it comes to fascists and the far right, giving them air time is a decision that should not be made lightly. If they are to appear, they should be rigorously challenged and forced to defend themselves. Anything less just gives them an opportunity to push their propaganda. When I learned that Andrew Marr was to be interviewing the French National Front leader, Marine Le Pen this Remembrance Sunday, I thought the BBC were having a laugh. It was obvious this encounter was not going to be a grilling. If you want to drag someone over the coals, you send for Jeremy Paxman or Andrew Neil. Marr, never known for his combative interviewing style, treated the French fascist leader as one indulges a pet tamagotchi.  Continue reading →

How Ukip and their friends are re-writing history

UKIP roundelIf you’ve picked up a newspaper or turned on the radio in the past week, you might have heard about Martyn Heale. He’s Ukip’s branch chairman and election agent in South Thanet – the constituency where one Nigel Farage hopes to be elected an MP next May. He’s also, you’ll probably have heard, a former National Front activist. As nice a little story as this is, it’s not news – it’s been public knowledge for some time. What might concern you more, and what none of the recent reports seem to have noticed, is that as recently as October, he was still defending the violent racist organisation.

This was revealed by James Meek in an epic report on “Farageland” in the London Review of Books. Meek met Heale and asked him about his past in the NF. “In view of Ukip’s insistence that it isn’t a racist party, I thought Heale might be defensive, or embarrassed, about being a member of the NF in 1978,” Meek writes. “To my surprise, he came to its defence.” Heale was clear enough: “There’s been an attempt by many people to associate the National Front with the far right. But that’s not fair, that’s not true. It was a bit of a social club. Initially the National Front was just a group of retired people and soldiers.” Continue reading →

Anti-fascists: five reasons we’re protesting Marine Le Pen

Marine Le Pen is due to speak at the Cambridge Union Society today. Unite Against Fascism, Cambridge University Students’ Union activists, the NUS Black Students’ Campaign, the UCU, Cambridge Defend Education and others will join a demo outside from 2.30pm. Demonstrators explain why:

The Front National (FN) is a modern fascist party. It was formed in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was backed by wartime fascists, including ex-SS officers and supporters of the pro-Nazi Vichy government, and a new generation of fascists, or self-styled ‘revolutionary nationalists.’ Their strategy was to seek respectability to win wider support and then transform these supporters ‘in our image.’

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French elections – more bad news than good?

First the good news. The Right is not only out of the Elysee Palace but it is on course to have lost control of parliament too. And in its place is probably the most progressive of social democrat parties in Europe today. The Socialists’ programme includes boosting industrial investment, youth employment and teacher numbers, hiking taxes on the rich, and partially reversing former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s regressive pension reforms. Francois Hollande’s election as President has already shifted the tone in Europe away from austerity and towards growth, although, with a commitment to balance the budget, it is very difficult to see how  this left turn can result into any sustained change of direction. Continue reading →