I felt it was appropriate to write about the 50th anniversary on Wednesday (Oct 5) of the creation of the party Jean-Marie Le Pen helped to found as the Front National (FN) and which his daughter, Marine, has striven to reform, making it something less or seeming less extreme, ditching a name resonant of jackboots in favour of the more inclusive Rassemblement National (National Rally or RN) and ditching her unreconstructed old far right dad.
We are hardly friends, FN-becoming-RN and me, and I believe RN is still an extreme rightwing party. But when it comes to news, I have always tried to be objective. A comment piece is to come but a quick look at The National's website - the link is here - will tell you whether I succeeded on this occasion. To no great surprise, Marine Le Pen and her father simply ignored my written questions as did RN's media chief, Isabelle Marchandier, though she did at least acknowledge and pass on an interview request to Jordan Bardella, who seems likely to replace Ms Le Pen as party president and already has the role on an interim basis (he also ignored the request).
Unlike another unresponsive MP (Laure Lavalette, mentioned below) and to his credit, Philippe Lottiaux replied generously to my approach. My French vote in June's legislative elections is not here but in London and most certainly did not go to the RN candidate. But M Lottiaux won the seat for a constituency that includes where I live when in France. Read the article itself, where his comments are summarised, at The National site. Here I reproduce the interview, conducted n French by e-mail ....
Salut!:
Have you always been attached to the Front National and Rassemblement National or were you attracted to the movement as it evolved under the leadership of Marine Le Pen?
Philippe Lottiaux:
I was sensitive to several themes developed by the Front National from the end of the 1990s and shared a number of its positions, but certain points meant that I did not join and remained within the "traditional right". The evolution brought about by Marine Le Pen was very important in my commitment.
Salut!:
More than half of the voters in your constituency voted for you. What is your essential message to the other half about what you hope to achieve as part of the major opposition party in the National Assembly?
PL:
A majority of voters did not want give full powers to Emmanuel Macron, and have succeeded. Now I would say two things :
1) The campaign is over and I am elected for all residents of the district. That's what I say to mayors when I meet them: some called for votes against me, but it's in the past and now I'm here to be, within the possibilities of an MP, useful to all, without asking about political labels
2) Obviously I do politics at the Assembly, and that is normal. But I think that an opposition member, when this opposition is constructive which is the case with us, can sometimes be more useful than a member of the majority. A member of the majority will follow this what the government says. A member of the opposition may bring questions and raise issues...
Salut!
What does this 50th anniversary mean to you? Reading the French press gives the impression that RN almost wishes it wasn't happening and just wants to put the FN connection behind it.
PL:
Given the state of France, it is important to look ahead and act in the best way and come to power.
The past years have made us what we are today and are our roots, and that is important. But nothing is frozen in politics and the "commemoration" of a party doesn't make much sense. This anniversary will, however, allow - and that is what we are going to do - to recall all the themes that our movement has put forward over the years, which were said to be fantasies or lies, and which reality has unfortunately proved right. We have sometimes made the mistake of being right too soon, and this anniversary will allow us to remember it.
Salut!
From the presidential election, I remember very clearly your colleague Laure Lavelette, in a televised debate, rejecting with indignation another speaker's description of the RN as far right. If not the extreme right, what term is appropriate – radical right, populist right, something else entirely?
PL:
With "extreme right", there are two terms that are not appropriate, "extreme" and "right ". We are indeed not "extreme". I do not think to denounce the evils of wild immigration, the loss of sovereignty, de-industrialisation, the loss of purchasing power of the French, insecurity etc. are marks of "extremism". The concern is that when the government, and also the media which is affiliated to it (ie most) do not know how to answer to argument, it tries to disqualify the opponent by qualifying him as either "extremist" or "conspiratorial"...
As for the right, it is now a memory. If the right is Gaullism and sovereignty, all right then. If the right is ultra liberalism,globalism and the arrival of new migrants, the "reserve army of capitalism", then no.
The distinction today would rather be between globalists and nationals, or between "elite" and "popular". The left-right divide survives but is in turmoil and political reality is now different.
Salut!
How would you explain to people outside like me the difference between the FN of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the RN of the MLP?
PL:
There is one fundamental difference: the RN of JMLP was an opposition party that had a "tribunician function", around a number limited in themes. Its very organisation did not allow it to come to power, and this was not necessarily his first wish.
This is the fundamental difference with the RN of Marine Le Pen: the RN presents a project for global society and has the ambition and, I believe, vocation, to attain power and to exercise it best for the French.
Salut!
In your life as a political activist, you will have encountered all sorts of insults – Vichyist, racist, fascist, xenophobe. Do you find this difficult to bear and how do you react?
PL:
Some things need to be given importance they deserve. Put simply: let's not lose time with intolerant people who, moreover, have only the word "tolerance" on their lips, like the former communist regimes had need to call themselves "democratic". It is necessary, sure, to react to insults, but don’t let us formalise it. That would be to do too much honour to fools. "One must be sparing of one's contempt, there are so many needy" said Chateaubriand…
Salut!
Jean-Marie Le Pen may consider himself the grandfather of a vaguely connected movement now enjoying success across Europe - Hungary, Italy, Sweden, arguably the current British Conservative Party. Do you think he has reasons to be proud of it, to have the feeling of having contributed to influencing European thinking?
PL:
Yes, it is clear that the ideas developed by JMLP around sovereignty, the nation, the dangers of immigration, patriotism, find a wide echo today in our country. I don't know if it inspired other countries or if it is a matter of the age we're living in.
To know that in a world where our culture and our ways of life are increasingly threatened, it makes sense that the "old countries" that are the European countries do not wish to turn the back to their history and wish to survive and not disappear in a great ultraliberal magma led by the European Commission. Concerns are found at the same time in many countries. There's an important convergence because there is a shared feeling. We can also talk about Spain, the Netherlands etc.
Salut!
At a time when the relationship between Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter was becoming tense, he said that there was virtually no significant difference between her opinions and his. Was this fair?
PL:
You have to ask his daughter directly…
Salut!
Faced with an image of the RN that I am sure you reject, do you have a message for Muslims in France? Not illegal immigrants, terrorists or criminals but ordinary people of mainly North African origin trying to live a normal life while observing their faith, victims also - as in the Nice lorry attack - of terrorism.
PL:
I try to avoid having messages for this or that community. For me, there are no “Muslims of France”. There are French and some are Muslim. As long as everyone respects the values and laws of our country, it is a duty to work for the well-being and full integration of our fellow citizens, regardless of their religion, colour or origin.
On the other hand, if some feel more Muslim than French and want to impose the law of Islam in France - which begins with communitarianism, clothing, the refusal to mix women and men, dress codes such as the burkini etc - I consider that it is not acceptable and that they must comply with French laws and customs. And leave if they don't want to. There is no place for religious communitarianism in our country, at least there shouldn't be...
Salut!
I had the impression during the presidential campaign that Marine Le Pen found Eric Zemmour quite disagreeable. When she said, loosely quoted, that the difference between the was that he was anti-Islam whereas she was anti-Islamism. was that something you could go along with 100 per cent?
I personally agree with a number of Eric Zemmour's observations, in particular on the risks linked to migratory submersion and the loss of codes and values that are alien to France.
However, I think he is making a mistake in equating Islam and Islamism. His reasoning is simple: Islam goes beyond the religious sphere to give a way of life and therefore inevitably leads to Islamism since it cannot accommodate the laws of the Republic. However, this is an inaccurate assimilation in my opinion.
Many French people of the Muslim religion make a very good distinction between their belonging to the national community and their faith. Some, I have seen, are even threatened because their daughter is too “integrated” and does not dress “traditionally” enough. It is of course necessary to work for the full integration of these people and to avoid any form of stigmatisation (the position of Zemmour on the first names was in this respect quite the illustration of certain drifts).
Salut!
The best question, I imagine, for you! What represents for you Rassemblement National?
A dynamic movement, which speaks the truth to the French and which alone can allow our country to survive against attacks of all kinds of which it is the object (European federalism, wokism and deconstruction, culture of repentance, loss of identity, development of barbarism, forgetfulness of our farmers, financial capitalism against entrepreneurs…). A movement that resembles France, with people from all horizons. A movement that is at the gates of power and which I am convinced will achieve it in a few years. And we will have a lot of work to put France back in order and give the French people hope that Mr Macron made them lose. So today a majority ...
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