The meaningless alphabet soup of the Nationalist Right
Tiberge at Galliawatch provides the low-down on the splinterings and re-splinterings and recombinations and further shiftings in the French Nationalist Right. It seems as meaningless as the Brownian motion of dust particles. Do the French Rightists stand for anything? Do their ideas connect with reality at any point? Why can’t Le Pen and his daughter get out of the way and allow at least the chance for something useful to form?
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November 20
Tiberge writes:
Jean-Marie Le Pen will hang on ‘till he drops. Marine is waiting for him to drop. The defections from the party are mainly due to everyone’s dislike of her. Many traditional conservatives in France actually regard the FN as a Jacobin-style party, i.e., it has no commitment to traditional, monarchical, Catholic France. Instead, it is committed to a multi-culti, republican, anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-capitalist type of society, with strong centralized control. Sovereign yes, but similar in some ways, I think, to Nazi Germany, except for the multi-culti part. Many Le Pen followers hate America and Israel much more than they hate Muslims. So I think they would be willing to have a large Muslim and black population (so long as they could control them).
Le Pen himself has indicated mitigated affiliation with the Church; but he seems to have a stronger affection for neo-paganism.
I am not certain that there is any hope at all for France from the “trads”. They are not organized, not popular and are given little media coverage. The population still committed to traditionalism has no one to turn to. The Church keeps trying to have a “dialogue” with Islam. As if the two religions could find common ground.
BTW, a well-known French historian and expert on Islam, Anne-Marie Delcambre, has recently said something that had also occurred to me: Islam is closer to paganism than it is to either Judaism or Christianity. This could account for the rather bland criticism of Islam from many quarters, and their not-very-bland invectives against Israel and America.
LA replies:
Let’s underscore that point:
Many Le Pen followers hate America and Israel much more than they hate Muslims.
In other words, they’re a lot like some paleoconservatives in the U.S.
Maybe these “hate Israel and America more than Muslims” conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic should be called (echoing the name of the neo-conservatives with whom they are still completely and cripplingly obsessed) the nowhere-conservatives. Here’s a song about them:
They’re the real Nowhere-Cons
Living in their Nowhere Lands
Making all their Nowhere Plans
For nobody.
Tiberge writes:
I should have known Bob Dylan would come to the rescue. His lyrics (transformed by LA of course), are a wealth of traditional conservative wisdom! If only he knew …
Yes. I agree they are a lot like paleocons, which is why the population does not vote for them—they are just too repugnant, despite their broad lines of immigration restriction and sovereignty that everyone agrees on.
You know that in French the word “con” means “idiot” (actually it’s a bit stronger). I remember the title of an article by a Frenchman who wanted France to help America in Iraq. And the word “faucon” means “hawk.” His title was “Les faucons et les vrais cons.”
But “con” offers a wealth of possibilities for punsters in both languages … In French a neo-con would be a new-style idiot (Sarkozy), and a “paleo-con” would be the more traditional idiot (Le Pen).
LA replies:
Actually, not Dylan, but the Beatles (specifically John Lennon in his Dylanesque phase in 1965). Here’s “Nowhere Man” on Youtube.
Tiberge replies:
OMG! I forgot. Of course it’s the Beatles—I even have that record—on 45 RPM.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 18, 2008 07:29 PM | Send